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 people worldwide. He created the EPIC Leadership framework (Empathy, Purpose, Inspiration, and Connection), which has influenced the mindset and behavior of leaders at many of the Fortune 100. He has delivered keynotes, workshops, and coaching to leaders at Amazon, Oracle, Cisco, NVIDIA, Capital One, Johnson & Johnson, IBM, National Australia Bank, BMW, bolttech, Petronas, Equals Group, Novartis, HubSpot, Volkswagen, and Mitsubishi Electric.

Rich was the 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. 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 leadership principles, culture, and operating mechanisms.

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, Austin), Imagine for Nonprofits, AWS re:Invent, IBM Elevate, Cognizant Elevate, Petronas Innovation Day, and Volkswagen Leadership Week. 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 Guardian, The Washington Post, and AWS Executive Insights as well as Daniel Goleman’s book, Optimal, and Marc Brackett’s book, Dealing with Feeling.

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. But 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. Today he describes himself as a recovering automaton and sums up his career trajectory with a poignant phrase: "from geeky guy to ikigai."

Rich founded the EPIQ Leadership Group to help executives and organizations worldwide 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 critical 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.

Featured in the Media

Forbes: 3 Lessons Amazon's Chief EQ Evangelist Learned Scaling EQ to 1.5 Million People

In this conversation with Kevin Kruse, CEO of LeadX, Rich shares important lessons he learned as he scaled emotionally intelligent culture across Amazon globally.

These include:

To scale EQ, you need to bake it into the culture
You need to scale EQ with ambient learning, not just training events
As AI grows, so will the need for EQ

Rich's favorite quote of late is from Satya Nadella: “If you just have IQ without EQ, it’s a waste of IQ.”

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.

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 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.

Download the e-book to learn how to strengthen your own emotional intelligence and that of your workforce.

More Testimonials

"Your workshop was very impactful for our leadership team. I've received nothing but positive

feedback around how engaging and valuable it was. It's given the team new ways of thinking about EQ

and developing deeper insights to fuel their own personal and professional growth.”

• SVP of RevOps, Global CRM company

"What a privilege it was to have you guide our colleagues through your leadership workshop. EQ is essential for understanding and solving our customers' challenges so this is incredibly important for the future of our business. Your very human and highly engaging style aligned perfectly with our strategy. Our colleagues left the session with a deeper understanding that success for our customers will be found through a mindset of innovation, resilience, and genuine empathy for each other."

• Chief Data Officer, Leading Australian Bank

"Your emotional intelligence session empowered people managers across the Americas to lead with empathy, understand how it strengthens team building, morale, and as a result, inspires higher performance."

* VP of Sales, AWS

"Thank you for leading the EQ workshop for our leadership team. The feedback from the participants has been

overwhelmingly positive. The workshop was a valuable experience for our leaders, and I believe that many other teams

could benefit from your expertise. I will be recommending your expertise and the workshops to the

broader teams here!"

• VP of Cloud Technology, Global Financial Services Company

"Rich’s keynote was outstanding—insightful, engaging, and incredibly timely. As we integrate new technologies, it's clear that human skills like empathy, adaptability, and self-awareness will be just as critical as technical know-how. This session was a powerful reminder that successful transformation starts with people."

• Chief HR Officer, Global Auto Manufacturer

"You've built the largest emotional intelligence community that I know of in the world."

• Daniel Goleman, World's leading expert in emotional intelligence and Author of Emotional Intelligence

"I really admire the way that you champion ideas that some of us spend our careers studying and actually make them practical for people to use. I think you have a real gift for that."

• Adam Grant, Wharton Professor and best-selling author of Think Again