Rebekah Diaz, CDE

rdiaz@mcaculture.com

Rebekah Diaz advises executives, boards, and leadership teams of arts and culture organizations on organizational strategy, leadership development, and culture. She helps them align people, purpose, and practice in the ways teams communicate, handle conflict, make decisions, hire, and respond to change. She brings behavioral science and organizational psychology to that work and turns the research into tools a team can use.

She founded Diaz Inclusion Consulting in 2018 and built it from a solo practice into a national firm that acquired MCA in January 2026.

Rebekah has advised more than 60 organizations, among them Center Theatre Group, OPERA America, New World Symphony, Pittsburgh Cultural Trust, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, USITT, TRG Arts, and the League of Resident Theatres. Her work includes organizational assessments, strategic planning, leadership development, and facilitation. It has produced institution-wide culture plans, leadership cohorts for rising managers, and executive teams prepared for a change in leadership. A much sought-after executive coach, she helps clients work through complex challenges, strengthen their leadership skills, and make decisions with greater confidence.

Rebekah designs the training and assessments MCA’s clients work with. She built the firm’s assessment of how each member of a team communicates and handles conflict, and a workshop series that prepares a staff and a board, separately, for a new leader’s first year. Her training for search committees prepares members to recognize the biases most common in hiring. 

She came to consulting from inside opera companies. At Florida Grand Opera, as Director of Education and Community Engagement, she created Cadenza, which used opera to support survivors of human trafficking and was nominated for an International Opera Award. At Magic City Opera she served as Interim Executive Director in a year when attendance grew 65 percent. At Pittsburgh Opera, as Director of Strategic Impact and Engagement, she wrote the company’s first inclusion strategic plan and co-founded Pittsburgh Arts Administrators of Color.

Rebekah has advised OPERA America as arts equity specialist since 2021, was a member of the steering committee of its New Works Forum and Learning and Leadership Council, and she opened its 2023 national conference. She moderated at the 2024 World Opera Forum, has presented to the member theatres of the League of Resident Theatres, has mentored participants in the Opera Leaders of Color Initiative, and serves on the board of Western Arts Alliance.

She was named to Pittsburgh Magazine’s 2021 40 Under 40 and received the Creativity and Innovation Award at the YWCA Greater Pittsburgh’s 2023 Equity Awards.

She is a Certified Diversity Executive (CDE), holds a certificate in diversity and inclusion from Cornell University, and has degrees from the Manhattan School of Music and Carnegie Mellon University. A native of the Bronx and a longtime Miami resident, she is based in Los Angeles.