Ash Richter

Principal of Innovation Ecosystems, BHP

Ash is a tech anthropologist and diagnostic engineer, as well as a former venture capitalist and field archaeologist. Her work focuses on the past, present, and future of technology and how large organizations (like high industry and governments) can more positively alter the trajectory of human technology (especially with respect to the next gen multi-modal spatial computing systems that she used to build for secure government facilities and cultural heritage sites around the world).

She has a multitude of degrees— in international business, international relations and technology security, computer science and engineering, archaeology, and ancient history from: the University of California, San Diego; Durham University; the University of Leicester; and Kings College, London.

She is currently at world mining leader BHP, driving innovative change at the start of the technology value chain–establishing new investment vehicles and de-risking disruptive technology areas. She was previously a senior venture lead at In-Q-Tel (IQT), the venture capital unit that supports the US, UK, and Australian national security and defence communities, selecting investments and designing work programs in her tech expertise areas to sync government agencies and start-ups on united, scaling pathways of technology development and deployment. Over the course of her career, she has worked in numerous countries and worked across start-ups, Fortune 500 megacorps, assorted international governments, venture and financial institutions, various royal families and aristocrats, national science foundations, universities, and assorted Vatican groups— all in the overarching pursuit of how to best drive the right emerging technologies into the right hands at the right time for greatest impact to all stakeholders.