our story
After beginning his professional career as a government and commercial litigation lawyer in Far North Queensland, Australia, our Founder and Practice Director, Dr. Chris McLaughlin, was fortunate enough to be given a once in a lifetime opportunity to relocate to the remote town of Thursday Island in the Torres Strait. The Torres Strait is situated between the tip of Cape York Peninsula, Australia and the Western Province of Papua New Guinea, and home to first nation Torres Strait Islander People, distinct from mainland Aboriginal People. Little did he know at the time that he would spend over a decade in the region, serving 15 remote island-based communities over 45,000 square kilometres of land and sea. The region helped shape Dr. McLaughlin into who he is today, both as a professional, a family-man and member of our wider community.
Throughout Dr. McLaughlin's career, he has been blessed with so many opportunities to live and work in regional, rural and remote communities, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, across Queensland, the Northern Territory and Tasmania, having the pleasure of interacting with the locals, all levels of government, private industry and community stakeholders, making life-long friendships and professional networks along the way. This experience has harnessed his understanding and passion for community, and its building blocks -
culture.
From lawyer, to academic, to executive leading Local Government and national corporations, some with $100M+ annual budgets and asset bases in the Billions of dollars, culturev8 is the culmination of Dr. McLaughlin and his team's multi-disciplinary experience and perspective and deep passion for community; a vehicle for helping community service providers navigate uniquely complex communities, and to deliver on their vision.
We offer our clients integrated professional services in law, business strategy & community engagement. We are 'professionals enhancing community-led development.'
Our work is everywhere.
Dr Chris McLaughlin
Founder and Practice Director
Dr Chris McLaughlin
our mission
We offer our clients professional services in law, business strategy and community engagement, aimed at enhancing community led development, supporting community service providers, both Local Government and independent, to navigate the unique complexity of regional, rural, remote communities, and to deliver-on community vision.
We have decades of experience supporting Indigenous and non-Indigenous regional, rural and remote communities in Australia, and deeply respect culture as the building blocks of every community, seeking to understand and cultivate it through our practice. We feel so passionately about this, that we named ourselves after this driving philosophy - cultivating culture or culturevate (culturev8).
