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About
Marist University Summer Preview Days
Get a firsthand look at life at Marist University during our Summer Preview Days! These events are designed to help you explore campus, connect with our community, and better understand the admissions process. Summer Preview Days will be held on August 14 and August 17.
About
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Academics
Marist University Summer Preview Days
Get a firsthand look at life at Marist University during our Summer Preview Days! These events are designed to help you explore campus, connect with our community, and better understand the admissions process. Summer Preview Days will be held on August 14 and August 17.
Academics
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Admission & Financial Aid
Marist University Summer Preview Days
Get a firsthand look at life at Marist University during our Summer Preview Days! These events are designed to help you explore campus, connect with our community, and better understand the admissions process. Summer Preview Days will be held on August 14 and August 17.
Admission & Financial Aid
-
Student Life
Marist University Summer Preview Days
Get a firsthand look at life at Marist University during our Summer Preview Days! These events are designed to help you explore campus, connect with our community, and better understand the admissions process. Summer Preview Days will be held on August 14 and August 17.
Student Life
- Athletics
Henrietta Akpata
Executive Fellow and Visiting Professional Lecturer of Management and AI
Bio
Henrietta brings more than 30 years of global technology and business leadership to her dual role as Executive Fellow and Visiting Professional Lecturer. Her career spans leadership positions at IBM, Sprinklr, and Dassault Systèmes' Medidata Solutions, where she led growth initiatives across AI, cloud, and enterprise solutions. At IBM, she served as Product Marketing Leader for the company's $34 billion acquisition of Red Hat, the largest in IBM's history, where she accelerated demand across IBM while preserving Red Hat's unique value proposition. She subsequently drove revenue growth at Sprinklr and Dassault Systèmes' Medidata Solutions.
Throughout her career, Henrietta has held leadership roles across the corporate value chain, from product innovation and marketing to strategy and market transformation, grounded in a philosophy of collaborative leadership and building mission-aligned teams.
Henrietta joins the School of Management faculty to bring real-world innovation and entrepreneurship experience to the business curriculum. She teaches Management and co-created the school's inaugural AI in Management course, launching in Fall 2026. She drives AI strategy and enablement across the School of Management, equipping the Dean, faculty, and students to harness AI, with an emphasis on preparing students for its impact on the workplace and their careers.
Beyond her responsibilities at Marist, Henrietta is co-founder and co-CEO of New England Fancy Food Company, Inc., a food and beverage venture, and serves on the Board of Directors of the $8 billion Hudson Valley Credit Union, where she chairs the Governance and Nominations Committee.
Education
MBA, General Management, University of California, Los Angeles 2007
MS, Computer Science, University of Southern California, 1995
BS, Honors, Computer Science, California State University, Dominguez Hills, 1993
Research Interests / Areas of Focus
Management and AI (especially AI in Management, the strategic management impact of AI), Quantum, Quantum AI
Selected Publications
Artificial Intelligence (AI) An Introduction: What Every Customer Experience Professional Should Know (co-authors Anita Siassios, Michael G. Bartlett, Gerry Brown, Sue Duris, Jae Lee, Brad Smith, Stephanie Thum and Benjamin Huntsman), CXPA, May 2018
"Reasoning in models of distributed knowledge," in Proceedings of 7th National Conference on Undergraduate Research, University of Utah, March 24 - 27 (1993)
"Mesh models of knowledge in distributed systems," (co-author: Marek A. Suchenek), in Euromicro Workshop on Parallel and Distributed Processing, Las Palmas, Gran Canaria, January 27 - 29 (1993), IEEE Computer Society Press
"Calculating Kripke models for distributed systems," (co-author: Marek A. Suchenek), in 3rd Annual CSU Artificial Intelligence Symposium, California State University, June 18 - 19 (1992)
Creative Work
Guest on AI Readiness for Students - From campus to career podcast, 2026
From Molecule to Market podcast, 2026
https://jakpata.substack.com/p/podcast-1-from-molecule-to-market?r=5as3t5
Spotify: Open, automated and secure digital Infrastructure Podcast, 2020
Ep 1: How open source software is built today
Ep 2: Simplify IT admin with open source and automation
Ep 3: Flexible, digital infrastructure for your cloud
Selected Presentations
AI in the Workplace workshop for students in the School of Management, April 2026
Diversity-Driven Marketing Symposium: Strategies for Unlocking Supplier Diversity in Marketing, February 2024
How AI will impact the Future of Marketing, February 2019
Keynote, Marketing. AI Technology. Management (MarTech) West 2018 and 2019
Adweek: Interview with Adweek on Watson Marketing Assistant and Campaign Automation, October 1, 2018
Awards and Honors
The US Department of Energy, Science and Engineering Research Semester at Livermore award, 1992.
NACD Directorship Certification, National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD)
Media Links
Featured on Page 15: https://issuu.com/thecareerdoctor/docs/the_private_room_issue_4a934724028f89
Featured Guest on AI Readiness for Students - From campus to career podcast