Former CTO | Advising Boards in MedTech

Greg Smethells

Former CTO and Technology Director with 20+ years building and scaling an FDA-approved medical imaging platform that served over 25% of US orthopedic practices and reached $10M ARR before acquisition by a Fortune 500 enterprise. Advises boards and founders on technology strategy, regulatory compliance, and organizational scaling in MedTech.

Advising Boards and Founders in MedTech

I bring 20 years of experience in MedTech as a CTO, leading engineering and quality assurance teams that built an orthopedic medical imaging and surgical planning tool used by over 25% of US-based medical practices while passing multiple FDA audits. Today, I advise boards and founders on technology strategy, regulatory compliance, and organizational scaling in MedTech. I bring that hard-won perspective directly to early-stage MedTech founders who are navigating the same gauntlet.

I've spent my career designing and developing software to solve hard problems — in physics, mathematics, and medicine — work that naturally led me into leadership of multidisciplinary teams. Rooted in physics and mathematics, my focus evolved into computer science, where I've come to specialize in software architecture and cybersecurity. Along the way, I published papers in major journals, helped sustain our nation's readiness through Nuclear Stockpile Stewardship, and for the past two decades have channeled that same drive into medicine, helping people get out of pain and back to their lives.

At the US Department of Energy, I developed a high-performance I/O toolkit for physics simulations running on massively parallel supercomputers — work that required a security clearance and deep knowledge of distributed systems. But the chapter that defined my career was building an FDA-approved medical device for orthopedics.

I arrived as the company had just pivoted from accounting services for medical practices to a new pre-operative planning medical device for orthopedics. I was one of two software engineers — and then quickly the only one — supporting a lean team of roughly a dozen, with the customer base in disarray when I joined. I wrote software, ran the datacenter, built the team from the ground up, and slowly rebuilt the company's technology and reputation. Within a few years, I was the CTO of a service that clinics and operating rooms depended upon daily. By the time of its acquisition, Medstrat ran imaging for over a quarter of the orthopedic practices in the US and reached $10M in ARR. I stayed on as Technology Director after the acquisition. Now, I'm bringing that experience to the boards and founders building what I spent two decades learning to build.

20+
Years of Experience in MedTech
25%+
US Orthopedic Practices Served by PACS that I Architected
4+ PB
Medical Images Stored By My PACS Architecture
$10M
ARR at Acquisition of Company I Built
2
Published Papers in Scientific Journals
Q
DOE Security Clearance (inactive)

Career Timeline

November 2023 — February 2026
Medstrat Technology Director
Zimmer Biomet | Downers Grove, Illinois
Medstrat was acquired in November of 2023 and I continued to direct and operate one of the largest orthopedic PACS installations in the US, with oversight of software engineering, quality, and system administration.
  • Grew the technology offering to include radiology dictation and a patient portal. Continued to write code with half of my time while Director.
  • Led a digital transformation from running the business operations using on-premise servers to running fully out of the cloud, saving significant costs to the company.
  • Posted 15% YOY growth in 2024 and 25% YOY growth in 2025, reaching over $16M ARR.
  • Remediated the Design History File as well as the SOPs and Work Instructions to be compliant with ISO 62304, ISO 14971, and IEC 81001-5-1, amongst other standards. Built out remediated documents from Software Architecture Diagrams to Failure Mode Analysis and the Cybersecurity Threat Model, plus many more.
  • Helped prepare a catch-up 510(k) submission for FDA approval.
  • Built a culture of continuous regulatory improvement that reduced FDA 483 observations audit over audit, achieving zero observations by the fourth inspection.
  • Automated many manual requirements of the standards by building Python tools to cover the requirements, capture the necessary input from disparate systems, and create the necessary outputs.
  • Worked alongside QA staff on SOP committees to improve and evolve company procedures.
  • Presented to the Engineering Advisory Review Board to add GitLab and Slack to company offerings.
  • Fostered an emphasis with engineers to use agentic AI to evolve their capabilities and began an Engineering Advisory Review Board presentation to add Claude Code to company offerings.
  • Managed remote teams spanning the US and India.
February 2006 — November 2023
Chief Technology Officer
Medstrat, Inc. | Downers Grove, Illinois
Built a company that ran medical imaging for a quarter of the orthopedic practices in the US and reached $10M in ARR when it exited. Led Engineering, IT, and QA while continuing to write code, author SOPs and policies, recruit and mentor staff, and drive the company's technology strategy. Participated in yearly board meetings.
  • Re-architected and re-wrote version 1 of the software product using modern architectural and software design principles.
  • Instituted best practices such as a source code repository, a bug tracking system, DevOps, and CI/CD.
  • Wrote all security related code and managed related documents to satisfy HIPAA/HITECH.
  • Added several new, significant software products including an industry-first DICOM-enabled, Internet-accessible backup system.
  • Delivered new, efficient SOPs that streamlined company operations and reduced regulatory risk. Passed multiple FDA audits.
  • Recruited, hired, and managed half of the company.
  • Mentored key staff to gain the skills and insight needed to take on key management roles I was creating as I built out the roles for the company and took on higher-level work.
  • Executed a lift-and-shift of our technology from a server-based platform to a cloud-based SaaS with over 4 PB of data. Continued to write code over 75% of my time as CTO.
  • Led a high-stakes M&A conversation to a successful win-win conclusion that resulted in the acquisition of my company by a Fortune 500 enterprise.
June 2002 — September 2005
Computer Scientist / Project Leader
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory | Livermore, California
Developed PACT, a high-performance I/O toolkit for physics simulations on massively parallel DOE supercomputers.
  • Created first autoconf/automake build system for portable C library across all UNIX platforms (HP-UX, Solaris, Linux, AIX, IRIX)
  • Implemented HDF5 I/O support enabling applications to abstract data file format output
  • Developed Python language bindings for scientific data I/O
  • Promoted to Project Leader after two years

Skills and Achievements

Strategic Growth & Scaling

Shaped technology and go-to-market strategy that turned an early-stage MedTech startup into the dominant platform in its category, delivering measurable value at every stage.

Market Strategy SaaS Scaling Cloud Transformation Revenue Growth Product Portfolio
Regulatory & Risk Governance

Helps companies build regulatory readiness into strategy, reduce compliance risk, and protect market access in highly regulated environments.

FDA ISO 62304 ISO 14971 IEC 81001-5-1 HIPAA 510(k)
M&A & Transaction Readiness

Brings firsthand experience navigating both sides of a strategic acquisition, from preparing for due diligence through post-merger integration and value delivery.

Due Diligence Post-Merger Integration Exit Strategy Fortune 500
AI Adoption & Innovation Strategy

Helps founders and boards understand where AI creates genuine competitive advantage versus hype, and guides practical adoption that delivers measurable productivity gains.

Agentic AI ROI Measurement Engineering Productivity Automation
Leadership Mentoring & Governance

Acts as a trusted sounding board for founders and senior leaders, strengthening decision-making, building leadership pipelines, and fostering cultures that retain top talent through growth and transition.

Board Participation Team Building Mentorship Succession Planning

Publications

Improvements on the application of convergence accelerators for the evaluation of some three-electron atomic integrals
Paul J. Pelzl, Gregory J. Smethells, and Frederick W. King
Physical Review E, vol. 65, no. 3, art. 036707, 2002
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.65.036707 →
Numerical evaluation of Hilbert transforms for oscillatory functions: a convergence accelerator approach
Frederick W. King, Gregory J. Smethells, Geir T. Helleloid, and Paul J. Pelzl
Computer Physics Communications, vol. 145, no. 2, pp. 256–266, 2002
DOI: 10.1016/S0010-4655(02)00155-8 →

Academic Background

2000 — 2002
M.S., Computer Sciences
University of Wisconsin-Madison
1994 — 1999
B.S., Physics and Mathematics
University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
March 2026
Connectd
Since 1996
Sigma Pi Sigma
Physics Honor Society
Since 1997
Kappa Mu Epsilon
Mathematics Honor Society

Let's Connect

Advising boards and founders on technology strategy, regulatory compliance, and organizational scaling in MedTech. Open to board advisory, fractional CTO, and strategic consulting engagements.

Available for Advisory Engagements

20 years as a MedTech CTO with deep expertise in product-market fit, AI adoption, regulatory compliance, and scaling technology organizations from startup to acquisition.

Board Advisory Fractional CTO MedTech Strategy M&A Advisory FDA / ISO 62304 AI Adoption