RARE Coaching & Consulting | Leadership Development | Equity Specialists Skip to the content

Have a greater impact
in your work,
with your team,
and in your community

RARE Coaching & Consulting works with executives, teams, organizations and individuals who are ready to remove the barriers to inclusion and push past limiting beliefs to become innovators and leaders in their workplace and industry.

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Ways to Work Together

About the Founder

Aiko Bethea, founder of RARE Coaching & Consulting, is a leader, builder, and connector. Through her work, she coaches leaders and organizations to remove the internal and external barriers to inclusion, allowing them to understand each other as people, colleagues, and teams in more connective ways.

During her childhood and throughout her career, Aiko has been in places where people who looked like her were underrepresented. She believes that when you anchor into your values and discover your voice, you can begin to live the life you want to live and be exactly who you want to be.

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We are forever changed due to our work with Aiko! She guided us through an anti-racism education, identification of our personal and organizational values, and helped us build shame resilience. Most importantly, Aiko helped us find ourselves within our anti-racism work which then gave us the confidence to take risks moving forward. Her warm, strong, smart and direct style allowed for us to build confidence, grow and change. We are now fully engaged and committed to our anti-racist work at Opal and we have a great deal of gratitude to Aiko for helping us get to where we are now and preparing us for a lifetime of anti-racist work.

Alexia Giblin, PhD
Executive Director,
Opal: Food+Body Wisdom

Aiko is an exceptional Executive Coach that I would recommend to anyone, especially a Woman of Color who needs support for their career development. When I started my 6 month coaching program, I was experiencing burnout as a social entrepreneur. I also had career goals to do new things in the next phase of my career, but I wasn’t moving forward in the pursuit of those goals for various reasons. I received everything I needed and more from being coached by Aiko, as a result I am a better entrepreneur and a better woman.

Tokiwa Smith
CEO and Principle Consultant,
Kemet Educational Services

I was fortunate enough to be part of Aiko’s affinity, cohort-based DTL program for women in nonprofits. What a transformational experience. Aiko has great facilitation and coaching skills, which made a cohort-based experience feel very individualized. She took a mainstream program and customized it to be most relevant to our affinity group. I was also part of a professional Board training Aiko conducted two years prior, an experience I rate as excellent.

Christine T.
Executive Director,
Families of Color Seattle (FOCS)

Aiko has been a partner with Wieden + Kennedy since 2019 as a part of our equity and leadership development team. She has brought invaluable insights into our Leadership Academy Program to make sure we are keeping our equity work and racial justice centered while we invest in growing our future leaders. Aiko is also the Executive Coach for the program and has received excellent feedback from those who’ve had the opportunity to work 1:1 with her. Our leaders found the sessions with her extremely helpful and motivating. We’ve all been consistently impressed with her ability to bring external knowledge and expertise to our people while still making it resonate and shaped to fit the context of our unique workplace culture. Aiko has also been a pleasure for our HR team to work with in the planning and execution of our programs. She is a fantastic thought partner who brings excellent strategies and organization to everything she touches, and is always focused on ensuring the best ROI is delivered within the budgets we have to work with. I would highly recommend working with her and hope to carry our partnership for years to come.

Sarah Outlaw
HR Director, Wieden & Kennedy

I lead the Black Employee Network (BEN), one of the Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) at Alvarez & Marsal (A&M). Aiko Bethea was the keynote speaker at our inaugural Black History Month program – over 500 people attended between North America and Europe. Aiko’s talk was entitled “Courageous Leadership.” Her keynote was inspiring, challenging, and encouraging to all leaders within the firm and not just people of color or disenfranchised groups of people. Many who attended the virtual keynote were extremely impressed with her content and overall delivery.

Art Hall
Senior Director of Corporate M&A Services, Alvarez & Marsel

Just finished a 6-month coaching engagement with Aiko. What an excellent coach; she was very insightful, funny, and passionate about making me better. She rapidly established a dynamic approach with every session we had with her energy and vitality. With her advice and guidance, I was able to develop a focused coaching plan for life. I would highly recommend Aiko for any coaching or leadership mentoring you may have in mind.

Brian E. Buzzato
Director, Field Service Mid-Atlantic Region, Varian Medical Systems