Two students participating in a psychological study

Placeholder

Caption

APPLY NOW

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 

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1k2SVmDFgEjmObQYUmNbCo?si=Milh2SdTSWyk-kUZKU-Pug&t=90&nd=1&dlsi=7a97b7b0e2e841cb

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)


Contact Information

Academic School

School of Management

Office

Dyson 2073

Email

henrietta.akpata@Marist.edu

Phone

(845) 575-3000 ext. 2936