Heather Kotula has been named President and CEO of Access Innovations, Inc. effective November 1, 2023.
Kotula succeeds Marjorie (Margie) M.K. Hlava, who was previously President and will now serve as Chief Science Officer with responsibility for product development and other specific projects. Kotula also succeeds Jay Ven Eman, who was previously CEO and will now serve as Chief Administration Officer, working in business development, contracts, and licensing.
Both Hlava and Ven Eman will continue to serve on the Access Innovations Board of Directors.
“After 45 years at the helm of Access Innovations, I am confident turning leadership over to Heather. She has a deep knowledge and experience in the industry and a strong commitment to serving our clients as well as insight into the future of our industry. We have worked together for many years and I am confident her energy and enthusiasm will help our company continue to move forward,” Hlava explained.
Ven Eman added, “I am confident Heather will continue to pursue our vision for the company. She understands our organization and will develop and implement innovative ideas to help us improve.”
Kotula joined Access Innovations as a Financial Analyst in 1995. Since that time, she has served in various positions, including Vice President of Operations for a remote office in Missoula, Montana; Manager of Administration, Marketing, and Sales; Director of Software Sales; Interim President of Data Harmony; and various other roles within the company.
She holds an MBA with a concentration in International Finance from New Mexico State University and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Languages from the University of New Mexico, having studied French, German, Italian, Latin, Ancient Greek, and Spanish.
Kotula currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Special Libraries Association and on the Marketing Committee of the Society for Scholarly Publishing.
“It’s an honor and a privilege to take on this position,” Kotula said, adding, “I look forward to building on the excellent foundation established by our outstanding leadership team over the past four and a half decades. I am also excited about allowing our founder and president, Margie Hlava, and our former CEO, Jay Ven Eman, to concentrate on the areas of business that are their passion while remaining involved at Access Innovations.”
Kotula noted that during the transition clients should expect additional innovations but will not experience any sudden changes or surprises. “The Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, ‘Change is the only constant.’ This transition will allow Access Innovations to stay on top of the challenges in our industry and continue to adapt and thrive.”
About Access Innovations, Inc. – www.accessinn.com, www.taxodiary.com
Access Innovations empowers clients to realize their search goals by leveraging its Data Harmony suite and team of semantic experts. Whether clients need a taxonomy/thesaurus editor, a metadata enrichment tool, or content analysis tools to help construct a semantic model, Data Harmony helps them build explainable AI that increases search precision by more than 90 percent and their team’s productivity by more than seven times. For more information about Access Innovations or Data Harmony, please visit www.accessinn.com or www.taxodiary.com.
