Rika is a senior leader, angel investor, best-selling author, and frequent public speaker on technology-powered industry transformation. She is Global Vice President within NTT's New Ventures & Innovation team where she is building Agile Co-innovation practices for emerging technologies like 5G, Edge, AI and IoT. In her additional role as Head of Sustainability for Americas at NTT, Rika is driving NTT's sustainability ambition in operations while also orchestrating the go-to-market for NTT's climate-positive solutions across their portfolio of digital infrastructure solutions. In 2022, Rika was awarded "Power 70" recognition for the Women of Channel awards with The Channel Co's CRN network. Trilingual in Japanese, German, and English, Rika grew up in Japan and moved to the US to attend Princeton University. Rika has since worked internationally for over two decades in senior executive roles in strategy, business development, consulting, and marketing with Fortune 500 companies - Accenture, NVIDIA, Capgemini, Sony, American Express - and Silicon Valley startups. She is a Digital Transformation veteran and has served on multiple start-up boards in Next-Generation Computing, Blockchain, Cybersecurity, and AI ecosystems. Rika is currently board chair at STRIDES AI - a social impact venture that is accelerating bringing gender diversity to the C-suite and boardroom and is the best-selling author of "Dear Chairwoman", featuring the trials and triumphs of global women corporate board leaders. Her next book will focus on the intersection of ESG, Digital Innovation, and the Pandemic, called "Beyond the Black Swan".
