The former AWS executive takes on a regional leadership role as Accenture reports 52,000 professionals using ChatGPT and develops its work on enterprise AI deployment
Richard Halkett has joined Accenture as Managing Director and OpenAI Enterprise Reinvention Group Lead for North America.
Richard Halkett has joined Accenture as Managing Director and OpenAI Enterprise Reinvention Group Lead for North America, following senior roles at Amazon Web Services (AWS), SambaNova Systems and LivePerson.
Halkett started the position in November 2026. His focus is on helping organizations turn AI capabilities into changes in how they operate, drawing on experience building technology businesses and leading teams responsible for bringing products to market.
Announcing his move on LinkedIn, Halkett outlined the challenge: “What makes this moment especially interesting is that the most important question is no longer simply what AI can do. It is how organizations redesign work, decisions, and customer experiences so that AI creates measurable and durable value - and how they do so responsibly and at enterprise scale.”
Accenture says 52,000 of its professionals are using ChatGPT to support its AI work for clients. OpenAI also describes the consultancy equipping employees with ChatGPT Enterprise and developing their skills through OpenAI Certifications.
Experience bringing AI products to market
Halkett most recently served as Managing Director, Applied AI Solutions at AWS, leading a 100-person global organization spanning sales, solution architecture, business development, partnerships and customer success.
His responsibilities included setting commercial strategy, developing partnerships and working with product and engineering teams on customer requirements. His work included the launches of Amazon Connect Health and Amazon Connect Decisions, alongside leading the established Amazon WorkSpaces business.
At SambaNova Systems, Halkett held the roles of Chief Revenue Officer and Chief Customer Officer. He oversaw a team of approximately 60 across functions including sales, marketing, partnerships, customer engineering and support as the company developed its enterprise AI business.
He also served as Senior Vice President, Americas at LivePerson, where he led the restructuring of its regional organization across the United States, Canada and Latin America.
Earlier in his AWS career, Halkett built its Digital Innovation organization from inception into a global team of more than 260 people, working across business development, professional services and partnerships.
Accenture’s OpenAI partnership spans deployment and training
The appointment follows the establishment of OpenAI’s Frontier Alliances in February 2026. Accenture was named alongside Capgemini, Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey & Company in multi-year partnerships covering enterprise AI strategy, systems integration, workflow redesign and deployment.
OpenAI’s Frontier platform is designed to help organizations build, deploy and manage AI agents that carry out tasks across business systems. The partnerships address the organizational work surrounding deployment, including leadership decisions, data integration and employee adoption.
Julie Sweet, Chair and Chief Executive Officer of Accenture, says in the partnership announcement: “Business transformation requires more than great models - it requires end-to-end execution across technology, data, security, and change management.”
The alliance model brings partner teams together with OpenAI’s Forward Deployed Engineering team. Each partner is investing in dedicated practice groups and teams that will be certified on OpenAI technology, with OpenAI providing technical resources, product roadmap insight and access to its research and product teams.
ETIH Innovation Awards 2027 open for entries
The ETIH Innovation Awards 2027 are now open for entries, with 26 categories recognising companies, institutions, projects and individuals making a measurable impact across education technology. The global awards span AI in education, digital learning, higher education, skills and workforce, inclusion, education operations, evidence and impact, with entries managed through ETIH’s new online awards platform.
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