Beyond the Black Swan: How the Pandemic and Digital Innovations Intensified the Sustainability Imperative - Everywhere

Of course, anyone would want to wake up from a really bad dream - especially one that seemed like it may never end, while successively stripping away joys and conveniences of our modern living.

The COVID-19 pandemic bestowed on us a collective nightmare experience of varying intensity, akin to a "Black Swan" event, as author and mathematical philosopher Nassim Taleb might describe―given its universal rarity and devastating effects and seeming predictability in hindsight. However, we may remember this remarkable time in our history rather as a "White Swan" event―one that catalyzed a more common occurrence of evolving Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) principles, a mainstreaming of sustainability―fueled by the digital innovations that designed ways to survive and thrive into a new, and more holistic, world order.

Now, as we emerge from the remnants of the pandemic’s aftermath, we find ourselves at the late dawn of a new geologic epoch―the "Anthropocene"―where the impact of humans on the planet’s geology and ecosystems looms so monumentally that the gravest threat to our existence stems from our own actions. Contained within these pages, you will discover insights from leaders across diverse domains―community, industry, public administration, and the investment community. Through their own experiences, we unfurl "White Swan sightings"― moments when sustainability flourished in response to reverberations of the COVID-19 virus.

More poignantly, the journey ahead carries us beyond the realm of the Black Swan, while the acceleration of digital innovations equips us to herald a new era out of the Anthropocene and into a new one, with sustainability innovations as a critical placemat. The humanistic seismic shifts caused by the Pandemic will generate a future of holistic interoperability between digital and organic matters. We are on the brink of designing unprecedented harmony with each other and equilibrium of regenerative growth with the world around us. The urgency has never been greater, nor the possibilities so profound.

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”.