Rich Hua

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 successfully scaled emotional intelligence from theory into a global movement.

Formerly the Chief EQ Evangelist and Worldwide Head of EPIC Leadership at Amazon, Rich’s work reached over 1.5 million people worldwide. He created the EPIC Leadership framework (Empathy, Purpose, Inspiration, Connection), which has influenced the mindset and behavior of leaders across the Fortune 500. 

Rich was the expert advisor to the Amazon Alexa team as they imbued Alexa+ with empathy and emotional intelligence, helping shape an AI-powered virtual assistant embedded in over 600 million devices. He also served as Amazon's Culture of Innovation Ambassador in Silicon Valley, where he advised thousands of C-suite executives on Amazon's unique culture, leadership principles, and operating mechanisms.

Rich is a globally sought-after keynote speaker who consistently delivers the highest-rated sessions at elite leadership events to audiences as large as 10,000+. These include AWS ExecLeaders, Imagine for Nonprofits, AWS re:Invent, IBM Elevate, and Volkswagen Leadership Week. In his talks, Rich artfully blends science, storytelling, and actionable tools into a compelling message about the critical human skills needed for sustainable high performance, leadership inspiration, and transformation in the AI era.

Rich has collaborated with the world’s foremost researchers in emotional intelligence and translated decades of science into mindsets and tool sets leaders can use in real-world corporate environments. He has been featured in Forbes, The Guardian, The Washington Post, and AWS Executive Insights.

Rich founded the EPIQ Leadership Group to help leaders and organizations build adaptable, resilient, and innovative cultures that are both high-performing and highly human. This is crucial in a world being reshaped by AI. His message is timely and resonant: IQ alone is not enough. Leaders and organizations must harmonize their EQ with their IQ—what he calls the EPIQ skill set—to thrive and succeed in the midst of complexity, ambiguity, and opportunity.