Rich Hua, Worldwide Head and Founder of EPIC
Rich Hua serves as Worldwide Head of EPIC Leadership at Amazon Web Services. EPIC is a program that upskills leaders in emotional intelligence and interpersonal dynamics, enabling them to lead with greater Empathy, Purpose, Inspiration, and Connection (EPIC). He has spent decades training and mentoring leaders in emotional and social intelligence—from CEOs to new managers to young professionals. Rich has launched emotional intelligence programs at Amazon, Oracle, and multiple organizations around the world.
Rich founded EQ@Amazon to enable Amazonians with the skills to be happier, healthier, kinder, and more successful. With 70,000 members, it is the largest employee-based group at Amazon and the largest corporate-based EQ community in the world. His amazing team of EQ Evangelists has trained over 400,000 Amazonians in EQ skills, including many senior executives.
Building on the success of the internal initiative, Rich launched the EPIC Leadership program to empower AWS customers with the emotional-social skills to successfully build innovative, resilient, and adaptable organizations. He and his team has reached over 900,000 customers with keynotes, workshops, and thought leadership pieces.
Rich's talks are consistently the top-rated sessions at large-scale events such as re:Invent, ExecLeaders, Imagine for Nonprofits, and Sales Kickoff. His training content has been integrated into dozens of onboarding, sales, and leadership development programs across multiple divisions of Amazon globally. Rich has lectured at UC Berkeley, Stanford, and Wharton, and he has written articles for The Guardian and Washington Post.
Rich collaborates with some of the world's foremost experts in emotional intelligence to bring actionable, research-backed skills to leaders and organizations. These include Daniel Goleman, Marc Brackett, Matt Lippincott, Vanessa Druskat, Jamil Zaki, and Bill Duane. He serves as an advisor to the Goleman Consulting Group.
Rich is also a certified Innovation Evangelist for Amazon. He founded the San Francisco chapter of Amazon's Culture of Innovation program, and his team of speakers has delivered innovation briefings to thousands of executives from around the world.
Follow Rich on LinkedIn.
News & Updates
The Switchboard Podcast: On A Mission to Start an EQ Revolution
In this interview with Julia Levy, I talk about:
- The Power of Emotional Intelligence (EQ): My journey highlights the importance of EQ to augment personal and professional success.
- Personal Growth and Transformation: My story is a testament to the potential of becoming better every day to find your path and reach your dreams.
- When Passion and Purpose Align: Pursue your ikigai and you never know what surprising professional path might result!
CivilTalk Ep. 19 - The EQ Revolution: Richard Hua on Leadership, Civility, and Business Transformation
CivilTalk sits down with Rich Hua, a global leader in emotional intelligence and innovation. Together, we discuss the impact of emotional intelligence on leadership, the challenges of integrating EQ into corporate culture, and the role of civility in fostering high-performance workplaces. Richard also shares insights on measuring EQ’s impact, overcoming skepticism in business, and the intersection of AI, ethics, and emotional intelligence, exploring how businesses can ensure AI aligns with human values.
In this interview from the 2024 Mindful Leadership Summit, Rich Hua talks with Mo Edjlali, Founder and CEO of Mindful Leader, about how he started an EQ revolution at Amazon and empowered 400,000 leaders with essential leadership (aka social-emotional) skills. This initiative has now spread outside Amazon and has impacted thousands of organizations on every continent.
[Washington Post] Deepening Your Defenses:
Why CISOs must lead with emotional intelligence to
maximize cybersecurity outcomes.
Cybersecurity leaders looking to strengthen their organizations’ defenses should add emotional intelligence to their skillsets.
Emotionally intelligent leaders display qualities that contribute to a people-first environment in which team members can thrive and operate at peak efficiency. Some of the most important of these qualities are covered under the EPIC leadership program from AWS.
“Security is not only a technical challenge, it’s also a human challenge,” says Rich Hua, WW Head of EPIC at, AWS.
AWS re:Invent 2024: Emotionally intelligent security leadership to drive business results
Elevate your leadership and learn to align security needs with strategic business outcomes, spearhead impactful transformations, and cultivate a sustainable security culture. Get an inside look how AWS and its customers lead security with empathy, translate security purpose into results, inspire innovation, and foster connections to improve positive escalation culture. Uncover proven strategies to overcome people challenges, empower security champions, and achieve scalable security success. Become empowered to lead with precision, acquire the art of connecting security objectives to meaningful business impact, and steer your organization toward a future where security is a catalyst for success and resilience.
AWS re:Invent 2024: Emotionally intelligent leadership for an AI-powered future (INO101)
As leaders create and navigate a future fueled by AI, they need to reimagine their leadership approaches, integrating their cognitive intelligence with their emotional intelligence to build adaptable, resilient, and innovative organizations. These leaders will have deep empathy for their customers and foster a culture of creativity and psychological safety among their employees. They will be data-driven but also authentically human. This session helps executives understand the EPIC attributes that empower future-ready leaders—empathy, purpose, inspiration, and connection—so they can drive successful outcomes for their businesses, their customers, and their people in the new human + AI era.te Here...
AWS Executive Insights presents:
Conversations with Leaders--Emotional intelligence in the Age of AI
In this episode of "Conversations with Leaders" from AWS Executive Insights, I talk about the emotional-social skills needed to succeed with Generative AI. Research shows that EQ is just as important as IQ when it comes to innovating with AI. Leaders need to manage complexity and ambiguity extremely well and personally cultivate an adaptable mindset. They also need to create a culture of psychological safety that maximizes trust, intelligent failure, and productive disagreement to effectively drive rapid experimentation and transformation across their organizations.
[The Guardian] What surprising skills do leaders need to innovate with Generative AI?
Leaders need cognitive skills, but they also need emotional-social skills to succeed in an AI-fueled future. Leaders need the right mindset, skillset, and toolset to drive digital transformation. A key to success is knowing how to optimize yourself and your organization to achieve what Daniel Goleman calls "maximum cognitive efficiency."
Learn how you can take advantage of these exciting and uncertain times and successfully navigate your organization into the AI future. Hear the inspiring story of how Mitsubishi Electric is leveraging these skillsets and mindsets to drive innovation.
Write Here...
Trends Talk: Interview with Sarah Sladek
Sarah Sladek is a futurist, author, speaker and founder of XYZ University. Her podcast dives deep into the forces that are driving change in the next generation. We discuss the power of EQ for career success, how to better manage stress and increase resilience, and strategies to manage conflict and grow your influence at work.
In this episode, Dr. Marc Brackett, Director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, and I explore the critical role of emotional intelligence in the workplace, I share my personal journey from low EQ to becoming a leader in EQ development, and practical strategies for leaders to manage their emotions and support their people to build adaptable, resilient, and innovative teams.
The Human Side of Innovation | Innovation Ambassadors
In a rapidly evolving technology landscape, discover how emotional intelligence (EQ) can unlock the path to innovation success.
Join Innovation Ambassador host, Sara Armstrong, in this special episode as she interviews David Lynch, Group Chief Technology Officer at bolttech, and Rich Hua, Worldwide Head of EPIC Leadership at AWS. Together, they explore the critical role of empathy, purpose, inspiration, and connection in driving innovation.
Gain valuable insights into how leaders can cultivate a culture of psychological safety, leverage failure for learning and growth, and effectively balance short-term gains with long-term objectives.
Tune in for an enlightening discussion that could reshape your perspective on what it takes to thrive and succeed in the ongoing pursuit of tech-driven innovation. Watch it on YouTube or listen to the podcast
Culture can become your most powerful differentiator. Over the last 20+ years, Amazon’s peculiar culture has been linked to not just how we use technology or structure teams, but also the consistent application of core mechanisms resulting in sustained innovation and resilience. But innovation is not only a cognitive process—it’s also an emotional one. This session provides a unique perspective on building a resilient innovation culture and discusses how to balance technical and emotional skills to empower talent and create long-term agility. Learn how to tap into this often underrated side of your brain to supercharge your own focus, creativity, and innovation.
AWS Executive Insights
Emotional Intelligence: The Secret Ingredient to Innovation
Innovation, by definition, requires change, and that often stirs up a host of unexpected emotions. In this ebook, AWS Worldwide Head of EPIC Leadership and Founder of EQ at Amazon, Rich Hua, outlines the vital role emotions play in your workforce's ability to innovate, and how developing your own emotional intelligence at work can foster an increasingly innovative culture in your organization.
Go to the AWS Executive Insights for more information.
Download the ebook to learn how to strengthen your own EQ (emotional intelligence) and that of your workforce.
Featured App
How We Feel
How We Feel is a free journal for your well-being created by scientists, designers, engineers, and psychologists. Over time, you will learn precise words to describe how you feel, spot trends and patterns, and practice simple strategies to regulate your emotions in healthy ways.
The How We Feel product team is led by Ben Silbermann, co-founder of Pinterest. The team includes current and former Pinterest employees who are passionate about creating a more emotionally healthy world. Our scientific team is led by Dr. Marc Brackett and his team at the Yale University Center for Emotional Intelligence. The Center offers training to schools to help educators, students, and their families better understand and manage emotions. To learn more, visit rulerapproach.org or read Dr. Brackett‘s book, Permission to Feel.
Featured Videos
AWS re:Invent 2022 - The Innovator's Mindset: Emotional Intelligence Can Supercharge Innovation (INO 203)
Innovation requires more than just IQ and technical skills. It’s a cognitive process, but it’s also an emotional one. Research has found that innovation has more to do with determination, grit, and psychological safety than it does with pure intellect. These are squarely in the realm of emotional intelligence. This session is intended to help you learn how to tap into this often-underrated side of your brain and supercharge your focus, creativity, and innovation.
AWS re:Invent 2022 - How to increase resilience and prevent burnout (INO103)
The past few years have been stressful and unpredictable. Office cultures are in flux, people are working more than ever, and many employees are threatened by burnout or already burned out. The good news is that you can do something about it. In this session, learn about the roots of burnout and science-backed techniques to effectively manage stress and prevent burnout.
Interview on Partnering Leadership Podcast
Studies and surveys show the significantly higher performance of individuals and teams with higher EQ (emotional intelligence).
And you know the great news, WE CAN improve our emotional intelligence!
In the conversation, we talk about the four core skills of emotional intelligence as well as the EPIC Leadership program. Through my own life story and example, I show that emotional intelligence can be developed.
Want to improve your chances of success? How about focusing more effort on improving your and your team's EQ?
Listen to Podcast
Watch on YouTube
Interview on the Empathy Edge Podcast
So…your leaders and colleagues could all improve their emotional intelligence, or EQ, to better collaborate - and you want to change your company culture for the better - but where the heck do you start? Podcast host, Maria Ross, talks with Richard Hua, Global Head of EPIC Leadership at Amazon. Rich's personal journey from self-professed non-emotionally intelligent person to where he is today will inspire even those of you who (falsely) believe you'll never be good at this stuff!
He shares how he intentionally built those muscles through self-reflection, coaching, and learning. We discuss the state of EQ and empathy in the corporate world and what talent is now demanding from leaders.
He shares how we created his current role and started this movement at Amazon - still a work in process but already having a profound impact - and he will inspire you as he did me, with tips to do the same in your organization. Where is EQ headed in our workplace world? Let's find out!
Interview on the Silicon Valley Podcast
In this edition Silicon Valley Podcast, host Shawn Flynn interviews Richard Hua, Global Head of EPIC Leadership and Innovation Evangelist at Amazon Web Services (AWS), to discuss:
👉 What is the Amazon “6 pager” and how it is used to propose a new idea?
👉 What are the 4-pillars of innovation?
👉 What is “Day 1” of the internet?
👉 How should someone train their mind to make it through tough times?
And much more... 💎Tune in on Apple Podcasts
Watch on YouTube
AWs re:Invent 2021 - Emotional intelligence to supercharge success
Professional success requires more than just IQ and “hard” skills. Research has shown that emotional intelligence actually accounts for the majority of your long-term success, even in technical roles. It’s the ability to remain calm under pressure and resilient in the face of adversity. It’s leading with empathy and inclusivity. It’s bringing out the best in others. In this session, learn how to increase your emotional intelligence so you can empower greater success for yourself and the people around you.
Emotions at Scale: Interview with Marc Brackett
Join us for this conversation with Rich Hua, global strategist and evangelist for Amazon Web Services who's also spearheaded a company-wide effort to invest in emotional intelligence. With over 1.3m employees and a business that spans e-commerce, cloud computing, groceries and entertainment, Amazon is operating at a scale that's hard to comprehend. And, so many emotions!
Rich talks with Dr. Marc Brackett, Director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence (and Oji Life Lab co-founder) and our Head of Learning, Andrea Hoban. Rich will talk about how he kick-started EI efforts at Amazon and will share his tips on how you can engage your organization in emotional intelligence training...even if you don't have a million employees.
Extreme Career Pivots and Emotional Intelligence
Ethan Evans, Amazon veteran and VP of Twitch Prime, interviews Rich Hua about his extreme career pivot and how EQ played a key role in his professional success. After getting a degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Cal Berkeley, Rich served as an evangelist and counselor for churches in mulitple parts of the world for 23 years, and then he moved back into the tech world as a solutions engineering manager. He now serves as a Principal Worldwide Strategist and Innovation Evangelist for AWS.
Emotional Resilience: How to Thrive in Uniquely Stressful Times
With COVID-19, recession, social isolation, and less-than-ideal work environments, we are facing an unprecedented amount of stress in our lives. Would you like to manage your stress more effectively? Do you want to be grittier in the face of adversity? Would you like to boost your confidence in uncertain situations? Do you want be healthier—mentally, emotionally and physically? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then be sure to attend this session on how to develop emotional resilience in stressful times. With emotional resilience, you can do more than just survive…you can thrive!
Interviews with Daniel Goleman
Daniel Goleman and Matt Lippincott interview Richard Hua, Global Strategist & Innovation Evangelist for AWS. Rich has been instrumental in delivering Emotional Intelligence (EI) training to more than 100,000 employees across many parts of Amazon. Check out out this 3-part series of mini-interviews.
LinkedIn Podcast with Lisa Earle McLeod
Bestselling author Lisa Earle McLeod and Amazon's Rich Hua discusses how to find and sustain emotional resilience. You'll learn how to be mentally buoyant and the technique for stress management used by Navy SEALs.
News & Updates
Building Empathy & Inclusion
Daniel Goleman says that the highest form of EQ is compassion, defined as "I understand you (your feelings and perspectives)" and "I want to help you." During these turbulent, painful and challenging times, we need compassion more than ever...from all sides. Regardless of our color, background, socio-economic status, or whatever "differences" we may have, we must realize that we have many, many more similarities. The EQ community stands in support of the black community and all marginalized people, and we believe that increasing emotional intelligence skills will help people be more inclusive and equitable in their thoughts and actions. For some hope and inspiration, take a look at this Heineken ad that brings people together who are "worlds apart".
- Empathy Quiz - Get your empathy score with feedback and tips on how to increase it
- "Just Like Me" Visualization: a powerful way to improve empathy
- If You Can't Empathize With Your Employees, You'd Better Learn To
- [Video] Why Aren't We More Compassionate? by Daniel Goleman
- [Video] Understanding Empathy by Simon Sinek
- [Video] How to Build Trust by Dr John Gottman
- [Video] The Power of Vulnerability by Brene Brown
Additional Trainings
The Science of Well-being - Yale’s most popular class ever (Now Free)
In this course you will engage in a series of challenges designed to increase your own happiness and build more productive habits. As preparation for these tasks, Professor Laurie Santos reveals misconceptions about happiness, annoying features of the mind that lead us to think the way we do, and the research that can help us change. You will ultimately be prepared to successfully incorporate a specific wellness activity into your life.
LinkedIn Course: Developing Your Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence can help you build effective relationships at work. Executive coach and organizational psychologist Gemma Roberts explains what emotional intelligence is and why it's important. She helps you become more self-aware so that you can identify triggers that may hijack your performance. She also helps you align your intentions and your impact so that you can build strong and collaborative relationships.
Learning Objectives: What is emotional intelligence; watching for triggers and hijacks; shifting perspective; empathizing, listening and communicating.
UCLA Health: Mindful Awareness Research Center
The Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC) is a partner of the Norman Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology within the Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA. The mission of the Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC) is to disseminate mindful awareness across the lifespan through education and research. Stream or download free Studio-Recorded Guided Meditations or their Weekly Live Podcasts.