Rich Hua

Rich Hua is an expert in emotionally intelligent leadership, organizational culture, and innovation at scale. With a background in electrical engineering and computer science from the University of California, Berkeley, Hua began his career in technical roles before spending more than two decades as a missionary and evangelist, an experience that shaped his understanding of human connection and emotional intelligence. He later transitioned into the corporate sector, joining Oracle as a solutions engineer before moving to Amazon Web Services, where he identified that many high-IQ professionals were limited not by technical skills, but by underdeveloped social and emotional capabilities.

At Amazon, Hua developed a leadership initiative focused on emotional intelligence. Starting with a keynote at an AWS sales kickoff, he established what became the world's largest corporate EQ community. As Chief EQ Evangelist and Worldwide Head of EPIC Leadership, he founded the EQ@Amazon initiative, which grew to more than 70,000 members and reached over 1.5 million people across Amazon and beyond. He created the EPIC Leadership framework—Empathy, Purpose, Inspiration, and Connection—and certified more than 150 EQ Evangelists to share the approach globally. His training was integrated into onboarding, sales, and leadership development programs across multiple Amazon divisions, and his keynotes were consistently top-rated at events including re:Invent and the annual Sales Kickoff. Hua also served as an advisor to the Amazon Alexa team, contributing to the integration of empathy and emotional intelligence into Alexa+, embedded in more than 600 million devices worldwide.

Hua has delivered keynotes, workshops, and coaching to leaders at organizations such as Cisco, NVIDIA, Capital One, Johnson & Johnson, IBM, BMW, Novartis, HubSpot, and Volkswagen. He has been a featured speaker at Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley, the Wharton School of Business, and the Mensa Foundation, addressing audiences as large as 10,000. His work has appeared in Forbes, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and AWS Executive Insights, and he has been cited in books by Daniel Goleman, including "Optimal," and Marc Brackett's "Dealing with Feeling."

Hua is the founder of EPIQ Leadership Group, where he works with senior leaders and organizations to build adaptable, resilient, and high-performing cultures grounded in human-centered leadership. His message—that sustainable success in the age of artificial intelligence requires harmonizing emotional intelligence and cognitive skills into the "EPIQ" skill set—resonates with leaders navigating rapid change and technological disruption. Combining storytelling, research, and practical experience, Hua brings technical expertise and emotional insight to his work in leadership development and organizational transformation.