Advisory at this level is not won through a competitive pitch. It rests on trust, on access and on a willingness to hear an honest and independent view. Our clients trust us to tell them what they need to know, not what they are being told.

The work is long in character, even when engagements are short. There is no business development layer and no team of graduates between the client and the advice. The person you meet is the person accountable.

Most engagements take one of two forms: a focused diagnostic, measured in weeks, that answers a specific question, or a retained advisory relationship that provides counsel across a portfolio of decisions over months or years.

Our advice is shaped by having governed decisions rather than studied them. We have sat in the capital committees, written the investment papers, negotiated the heritage agreements and built the co-management frameworks, and we have done it as the person leading the work, not participating.

We advise companies on what the ground will require of them. We advise Traditional Owner groups on what the commercial logic will demand. It is the same work, seen from two sides of the table.

We keep the number of clients small, so that each engagement carries the full weight of our attention.

Christopher Christie is a Yirandhali and Koa man. He founded Blackpath after more than twenty years in senior leadership across Rio Tinto, BHP, Fortescue and the Australian energy sector, where he governed capital portfolios exceeding A$15 billion across several of Australia's largest iron ore developments.

After Juukan Gorge, he joined Rio Tinto, where he led the first two major developments to move in the Pilbara, Western Range and Brockman Syncline 1. At Western Range, the A$2.7 billion joint venture with Baowu Steel, he helped design Australia's first nationally recognised co-management framework with Traditional Owners. At Brockman, the A$2.8 billion Syncline 1 project, he built the trade-off assessments that brought investment probability, risk and social licence into a single economic analysis, an approach that has since been widely adopted across the industry. During those years, he co-chaired the Elevating Indigenous Voices Committee and led work addressing discrimination and harassment in the workplace.

He holds an Executive MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management at UNSW, and completed Leading Sustainable Corporations at the University of Oxford's Saïd Business School.

We are selective about the work we take on and the organisations we work with, and we commit where our advice will carry real weight for company, community and Country. Our work is governed by a Code of Professional Conduct, covering conflicts of interest and the protection of Indigenous cultural and intellectual property.

Blackpath is wholly Indigenous-owned and Supply Nation registered.

Beyond our commercial work, we are proud to provide pro bono support to education and place in Indigenous communities.