Aerica Shimizu Banks, Partner at Evolution, is a strategic and organizational change management consultant and coach. She helps leaders grow authentically and impactfully, guiding dozens of organizations to achieve strategic clarity, strengthen workplace culture, and advance social justice. Her clients have included founders, startups, companies, government agencies, and nonprofits, such as 160over90, Afresh Technologies, The Bridgespan Group, Color Of Change, DAI, McKinstry, and Wattpad. She provides customized assessments, strategic plans, training and facilitation, office hours for executive teams, and one-on-one leadership coaching. She is also available for public speaking engagements.
Her career started in environmental policy, where she brought communities and government agencies together to inform policy implementation. She then transitioned to tech, gaining deep experience in human resources, IP law, and government affairs at Google and Pinterest. For the last few years, she has stepped into consulting and coaching, collaborating with clients to understand their needs and provide the structure for meaningful, transformational change. She is passionate about supporting women founders and has reached thousands of founders and small business owners through Google and as an angel investor, creating programs and structures that provide mentorship, financing, networking, and other resources.
Aerica centers values-based leadership, social impact, and equity in her consulting and beyond. She served on President Biden's innovation policy committee, helped pass the Silenced No More Act in California, and endorsed the Algorithmic Accountability Act. Professional highlights include founding Pinterest's DC office and leading federal affairs; leading diversity and equity initiatives on Google's legal team and serving as the Black small business liaison for the DC area; co-founding BEACON: The DC Women Founders Initiative; and serving as a political appointee in the Obama Administration. She is also an artist who has mentored two cycles of the New Inc Fellowship program at the New Museum and co-founded The Color Curtain Project.
A TEDx speaker, Forbes 30 Under 30 Social Entrepreneur and a Washingtonian Magazine Tech Titan, Aerica holds an MSc in Environmental Policy from Oxford University and a BA in Environmental Studies and Public Affairs from Seattle University. She lives with her husband and cat in Brooklyn.