Responsible Innovation. AI & Quantum, Space Tech. Board Director. Forbes Honoree. VC. Author.

A technology leader, VC investor, best-selling author, and frequent public speaker on technology-powered industry transformation, Rika Nakazawa is Chief Commercial Innovation at NTT, a global technology and business services provider with more than 340,000 innovators worldwide. Her work focuses on advancing commercial and sustainability applications of quantum innovation, photonic infrastructure, and space-enabled intelligence, translating frontier science into scalable industry impact across global public and private sectors. Rika has been recognized by Forbes as part of its 50>50 Women in Innovation and has received “Power 70” and “Power 80” honors from The Channel Company’s CRN network for two consecutive years. She has also been named among the Top 100 in Emerging Tech by Women of the Future. Trilingual in Japanese, German, and English, Rika grew up in Japan and moved to the United States to attend Princeton University. She has held senior executive roles spanning strategy, commercialization, partnerships, and go-to-market leadership across Fortune 500 companies—including NVIDIA, Accenture, Capgemini, and Sony—as well as high-growth Silicon Valley startups. She has served on multiple boards and advisory groups across AI, quantum and next-generation computing, immersive technologies, and cybersecurity ecosystems. Rika is the best-selling author of Dear Chairwoman, chronicling the trials and triumphs of women corporate board leaders. Her most recent book, Beyond the Black Swan: How the Pandemic and Digital Innovation Intensified the Sustainability Imperative—Everywhere, was published by Taylor & Francis in 2025.