Rich Hua is one of the world's foremost experts in building emotionally intelligent cultures of innovation at scale. He built the world's largest corporate-based EQ community of 70,000 members at Amazon, making him one of the few people who has successfully scaled emotional-social intelligence from theory into a global movement.

Formerly the Chief EQ Evangelist and Worldwide Head of EPIC Leadership at Amazon, Rich founded the EQ@Amazon initiative, which reached over 1.5 million leaders, employees, customers, and partners worldwide. He created the EPIC Leadership framework (Empathy, Purpose, Inspiration, and Connection), which has reshaped the mindset and behavior of hundreds of thousands of leaders at organizations all over the world, including Amazon, Cisco, NVIDIA, Capital One, Johnson & Johnson, IBM, National Australia Bank, BMW, bolttech, Petronas, Equals Group, Novartis, HubSpot, Volkswagen, and Mitsubishi. He also served as expert advisor to the Amazon Alexa team as they imbued Alexa+ with empathy and emotional intelligence, helping shape the world’s most pervasive AI-powered virtual assistant embedded in over 600 million devices. 

Rich is a globally sought-after keynote speaker who has consistently delivered the highest-rated sessions at elite leadership events such as AWS ExecLeaders (London, New York, Tokyo, Shanghai, Pelican Hill), Imagine for Nonprofits, re:Invent, IBM Elevate, Cognizant Elevate, and Petronas Innovation Day. He has also been a featured speaker at Stanford University, University of California at Berkeley, Wharton School of Business, Mensa Foundation, and Chief of Staff Association, speaking to audiences as large as 10,000+. In his talks, Rich artfully blends science, storytelling, and actionable tools into a compelling message about the crucial "human" skills needed to optimize personal and professional success, leadership effectiveness, and innovation and transformation in our AI-powered world.

Rich has collaborated with the world’s foremost researchers in emotional-social intelligence and translated decades of science into mindsets and tool sets leaders can use in real-world corporate environments. He has has been featured in Forbes, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and AWS Executive Insights as well as Optimal by Daniel Goleman and Dealing with Feeling by Marc Brackett.

Early in his life, Rich aspired to be a “genius robot”—hyper-logical, emotionally detached, and optimized for delivering results. The plan worked for a while: he earned a perfect SAT score (1600) and studied Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at UC Berkeley. After college, he held roles as Missionary, Evangelist, Technical Seller, Enterprise Solutions Engineering Manager, and Global Business Development Manager. He eventually discovered that IQ without EQ was profoundly insufficient, and that long-term success—in leadership, relationships, and life—required integrating emotional intelligence with cognitive horsepower. Now he describes himself as a recovering automaton and sums up his career trajectory with a single phrase: "from geeky guy to ikigai."

Today, Rich works with senior leaders and organizations worldwide to build adaptable, resilient, and innovative cultures that are both high-performing and deeply human. This is especially critical in a world being reshaped and redefined by AI. His message is unmistakable and urgent: IQ alone is not enough. Leaders and organizations must harmonize their EQ + IQ—what he calls the EPIQ skill set—to thrive and succeed in the midst of complexity, ambiguity, and opportunity.