Brian Rikuda is the Executive Vice President of Enterprise Growth Strategy, Business Operations, and Programming Strategy of BET Media Group, the world’s largest media company dedicated to entertaining, engaging, and empowering the Black community and championing Black culture.

Rikuda leads BET’s Enterprise and Business group which is responsible for developing strategic and operating plans to drive the continued growth of BET’s powerful portfolio of segment-leading content offerings and consumer platforms. Rikuda is responsible for leading performance and cost assessment to optimize operations, identifying new business opportunities, and driving material business growth for the BET brand.

Brian Rikuda joined BET with two decades of corporate and entrepreneurial experience utilizing business strategy and solutions to drive growth, with a proven track record of identifying new business opportunities that yield exponential growth in media and technology. Rikuda previously served as an Associate Partner at McKinsey & Company, where he helped clients implement new business and go-to-market strategies within the firm’s Tech, Media, and Telecom practice, specializing in scaling rapid growth for clients. In addition to his client work, he co-led the McKinsey Black Network and helped drive research on topics of Black economic mobility, including the Firm’s latest report on Black consumers and racial equity.

Native of San Diego, California, Brian Rikuda received his Bachelor of Science in economics and political science from Stanford University. Brian later obtained his Master’s in Business Administration from Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to joining McKinsey and Company, Brian founded and operated a Hip-Hop record label and a cloud-based software app development company.

His current role represents his "welcome home" to BET, with him being a member of the BET family since 2005, when he won the BET reality show The Ultimate Hustler, a business and entrepreneurial competitive reality series a la "The Apprentice," starring Roc A Fella Record’s co-founder Damon Dash.