Her Story
About Mehak
Mehak Akmal grew up in Lahore, Pakistan, a long way from the technology teams she now leads at Meta. Today, as Head of Product Operations, she owns something most users never see but always feel: the machinery that carries a product from an engineer's idea to millions of people — reliably, at scale, and without breaking the experience along the way. It is unglamorous, high-stakes work, and Mehak has made it her craft.
Her philosophy is simple. Great products don't fail because of bad ideas; they fail in the gap between building something and running it well. For nearly 13 years, she has closed that gap — working at the intersection of product development, DevOps, AI-driven automation, and cross-functional program management, and pairing deep technical fluency with a relentlessly customer-centric mindset.
That expertise was hard-earned across some of the world's most demanding organizations. At Deloitte Digital, Mehak led large-scale cloud transformations and served as end-to-end delivery manager for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) COVID-19 vaccine administration and management system (VAMS) — critical technology healthcare providers nationwide depended on during the pandemic, and among the achievements she's proudest of.
At CIT, she led digital marketing, CRM, and customer acquisition, earning the Chairwoman's Award and recognition for her branding work through a major corporate acquisition. At Mastercard, she helped scale the Priceless Cities platform through global digital and cause-marketing campaigns across North America. Along the way she earned her Bachelor of Science from Manhattanville College, graduating cum laude, and certifications spanning Salesforce Marketing Cloud, AWS, and AI technologies including Anthropic's.
Mehak's ambition doesn't stop at the corporate ladder. She founded Style Sage, a sustainable fashion app on the App Store, uniting her love of technology with her commitment to environmental responsibility. And alongside her family, she invests in what shaped her — supporting women's education, digital literacy, and clean water projects in rural Pakistan, so the next generation of girls has a shorter road than she did.
Guided by honesty, collaboration, and a commitment to always learning, Mehak believes real success is never built alone. It's built on strong relationships, transparent communication, and technology used to create impact that outlasts the quarter — for businesses and communities alike.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Mehak
01What do you attribute your success to?
My success belongs to the people who shaped me — my sisters, my husband, my parents, and the mentors I've had throughout my career. I believe everyone who enters your life leaves you with something: an experience, a lesson, a new way of seeing. I am the sum of those people, and I've learned to treat every relationship as part of how I grow.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best advice I ever received — from my mentors, my husband, and my father — is that anyone can acquire knowledge, but very few are truly willing to work hard for it. Put your whole self into what you do. Be passionate about it, be consistent, and nothing can stop you. Hard work, sustained over time, is the real differentiator.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Be curious — relentlessly. Ask the questions others hesitate to ask: the why, the how, the what. The more curiosity you bring, the more people will open up and share the reasoning behind their decisions, and that's where the real learning happens. Pair that curiosity with hard work and genuine motivation, and you'll build a career no one can take from you.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
Coming from Pakistan, I navigated an enormous cultural shift. As an immigrant, you often have to work harder to prove your worth — you don't arrive with everything guaranteed. And in male-dominated spaces, you learn to communicate with precision, to make your case clearly and let the work speak. But that same challenge is where the opportunity lives: your career is shaped by how hungry you are to learn and how intentionally you build your network. Passion and knowledge are the great equalizers — they open doors that circumstances alone never will.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Being upfront and direct. If there's a problem, you name it — there's no value in hiding behind things. Honest, clear communication is the foundation of everything I do. I truly believe that if more of us operated from a place of good communication, the world would be a far better place to work and live in.
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