COACH • DESIGNER • PRODUCER • CONSULTANT
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About Aliko
Aliko Weste is a coach, designer, producer, speaker, and consultant working at the intersection of business, culture, and human development. His work centers on helping founders, organizations, and communities understand the deeper systems shaping their work - and design structures that support both impact and human flourishing.
Known for his interdisciplinary approach to complex challenges, Aliko works as a systems strategist, bringing together insights from business strategy, cultural inquiry, design thinking, and personal development. Much of his work focuses on helping people see the hidden architecture beneath the surface - the patterns, narratives, and structures shaping how businesses operate, communities function, and individuals move through the world.
When those systems become visible, they can be redesigned.
Background
Aliko was born and raised in Seattle, Washington to a French Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jewish mother and a Caribbean father. A first-generation American, trans male, Black, Jewish, bilingual entrepreneur, his lived experience has shaped a lifelong curiosity about culture, identity, belonging, and the social systems that organize our lives.
Growing up within multiple cultural traditions and communities, Aliko developed an early awareness of how identity, history, and power shape human relationships. These experiences would later become foundational to his work exploring cultural systems, economic systems, and the personal belief systems that shape how we move through the world.
His perspective is deeply informed by Jewish ritual tradition, Afro-Indigenous lineage, and years of collaboration with activists, somatic practitioners, scholars, and wisdom keepers. Through these relationships and experiences, he has developed a strong commitment to embodied action, relational awareness, and neo-indigenous approaches to community and cultural regeneration.
Entrepreneurship + Design
Over the past decade, Aliko has founded and led multiple ventures at the intersection of design, business, and culture.
He is the founder of Our Living Design Studio, a brand and website strategy agency that has served 415+ clients globally, supporting mission-driven founders and organizations with brand development, business strategy, and digital presence. Within two years, he scaled the studio into a multidisciplinary team of 12 designers, strategists, and developers.
Through this work, Aliko has partnered with entrepreneurs, nonprofits, and creative leaders to build brands and businesses rooted in purpose, clarity, and long-term sustainability.
Cultural Production + Community Work
Alongside his work in business and design, Aliko has spent years working as a producer and cultural organizer, creating spaces for dialogue, creativity, and collective transformation.
Through his production company We Are You Productions, he has produced 40+ cultural gatherings and transformational events, bringing together communities of up to 450 people around themes of music, art, education, and social change.
He has also consulted for festivals, organizations, and community leaders on cultural integration, race and equity, gender dynamics, and community design, helping groups navigate the complexities of identity, belonging, and power within shared spaces.
As someone who holds multiple intersecting identities, Aliko brings a rare capacity to understand the needs of diverse communities and to design spaces where people from many different backgrounds can connect, collaborate, and experience collective belonging.
He approaches cultural work with the understanding that many of the divisions we experience today are rooted in unprocessed pain, inherited narratives, and unresolved historical trauma. Rather than approaching conversations about race, gender, and power through blame or polarization, his work centers compassion, relational awareness, and solidarity.
By helping people see the systems shaping their lives and work, new possibilities for creativity, connection, and collective flourishing become possible.
Coaching + Personal Development
In addition to his consulting work, Aliko has supported hundreds of individuals through coaching and personal development work.
As a certified grief mentor and longtime participant in men’s work, he brings a deep understanding of the emotional and psychological landscapes that shape human behavior. His coaching explores how belief systems, identity, money patterns, and past experiences influence the ways people lead, create, and relate to others.
A core part of this work involves helping individuals unwind inherited narratives, heal personal wounds, and reconnect with their deeper sense of purpose and agency.
For Aliko, personal transformation and cultural transformation are deeply interconnected. The systems we build in the world are reflections of the systems we carry inside ourselves.
ToDay
Today, Aliko works with founders, organizations, and cultural leaders navigating moments of growth, reinvention, and systemic change.
Across consulting, speaking, coaching, and cultural production, Aliko’s work focuses on one central idea: designing a future worth inhabiting for businesses, communities, and the humans inside them.
Through strategic consulting, speaking, coaching, and cultural projects, he continues to explore how we might design systems — economic, cultural, and personal - that support belonging, creativity, and shared humanity.
By helping people see the systems shaping their lives and work, new possibilities for creativity, connection, and collective flourishing become possible.
Lineage of Learning
No work emerges in isolation. Over the years, my thinking and practice have been shaped by teachers, collaborators, mentors, authors, and traditions that have influenced how I understand culture, business, healing, and human development.
Below are some of the people and lineages that have informed my journey.
Teachers, Mentors +
Collaborators
People I have learned from directly through mentorship, collaboration, community work, and personal relationships.
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Prudence Hockley
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Nancy Babienko
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Aaron Johnson
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Morgan Vanderpool
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Laurence Cole
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Ahlay Blakely
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Raine Crowe
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Lux Gypsum
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Annika Knepper
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Hannah Elledge
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Hector Pang
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Nathan Rimmel
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Tali Weinberg
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Rebecca Schisler
Authors, Thinkers & Cultural Influences
Writers, scholars, and cultural thinkers whose work has shaped my understanding of systems, identity, culture, and healing.
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bell hooks
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Sylvia Federichi
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Layla F. Saad
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adrienne maree brown
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Resmaa Menakem
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Malidoma Patrice Somé
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Sobonfu Somé
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Mark Wolynn
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Carolyn Elliott
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Janet W. Hardy
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Dossie Easton
Traditions and cultural lineages that have influenced my worldview:
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Shipibo Indigenous traditions of the Amazon
Business & Personal Development Influences
Entrepreneurs, educators, and voices in the personal development and business worlds whose ideas have shaped aspects of my entrepreneurial and leadership journey.
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Brendon Burchard
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John C. Maxwell
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Tai Lopez
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Byron Katie
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Russell Brunson
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Myron Golden
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Natalie Dawson
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Kyle Cease
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Jamie Sea
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Tiffany Carter
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Teal Swan
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The School of Hard Knocks
Programs and communities:
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Worldwide Dream Builders
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Mind Valley