Akenten Appiah-Menka was a Ghanaian lawyer, politician, and businessman. During the second republic of Ghana, he was the deputy minister for trade and industry and deputy attorney general.

He was born in Aboabogya, a town in the Kwabre district near Kumasi in the Ashanti Region on 3 July 1933 to Eno Akosua and Opanin Amponsah Adiyia. He lost his father before he was born.

Akenten Appiah-Menka attended the Aboabogya Methodist School for his middle school education, the Abuakwa State College, Kibi for his Cambridge certificate, and Adisadel College for his advanced level certificate. Through a French cargo, he stowed away to Marseille. He was sent to England on a train in 1954 and enrolled in the University of North London formerly called the Northwestern Polytechnic, London, and obtained his GCE advanced level certificate in 1955. He also studied law at the University of Manchester from 1956 to 1959 and was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn.

Upon his return to Ghana in 1960, he became a legal practitioner, barrister, and solicitor working as an associate of the Yaanom Chambers which was then headed by Nicholas Yaw Boafo Adade. He worked until 1969 to pursue politics.

Akenten Appiah-Menka was appointed a member of the Constitution Review Commission in the Atta Mills administration.

He was elected member of parliament for the Afigya-Kwabre constituency in 1969 contesting against Agyemang Alexander Frederick of the National Alliance of Liberals, Baffour Ankoma of the United Nationalist Party, and Otuo Siriboe of the People's Action Party. He was also appointed deputy minister of trade that same year. There was a reshuffle in 1971 where he was appointed attorney general. He served in this capacity for only one year until the Busia government was overthrown. He was detained by the Supreme Military Council (then National Redemption Council) after the overthrow and was released in 1973.

Akenten Appiah-Menka was a founding member of the New Patriotic Party in 1993. He later became a member of the council of elders of the New Patriotic Party and also Chairman of the council of elders of the party's Ashanti Regional branch.

He was appointed chairman of the Akufo-Addo administration's party/government committee; a committee whose core mandate was to ensure that there was a coordinated and cordial working relationship between the incumbent party (New Patriotic Party) and the government.

Akenten Appiah-Menka established the Appiah Menka Complex Ltd which started on a 600-acre land in Akrofum near Obuasi producing palm oil. He was Managing Director and later Chairman of the Appiah Menka Complex Ltd, the Ashanti Oil Mills, and the Appiah Menka plantations. The company then started producing Appino soap; a popular detergent soap of the 1980s and crocodile pale.

He established the soap production company in a joint venture with the National Investment Bank. Due to his industrial exploits, he was once made President of the Association of Ghana Industries.

From 1983 to 1984, he was in jail due to a land dispute in the Nzema area of the Western Region. In 1960, he married Mrs. Rosemond Appiah-Menka.

Akenten Appiah-Menka died onc13 February 2018. All NPP flags in the various regions and constituencies of the country were flown at half-mast for seven days following his funeral. The funeral and burial ceremony was held on May on24 May 2018 and was buried in Kumasi.

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