Senior clients come to Blackpath when a matter is important, sensitive or difficult to resolve from inside a single 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. We are a relationship based business, and aim to build client relationships for the long term.

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 direct, confidential and grounded in the realities of commercial decision-making and Country.

Blackpath was founded from experience inside decisions where capital, heritage, risk, partnership and board accountability meet.
That experience matters because many of the hardest questions in Australia are not only commercial, legal, technical or cultural. They require those forms of judgement to be held together.
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We advise companies on what Country may require of them. We advise Traditional Owner groups on the commercial logic they are being asked to meet.

Christopher Christie is a Yirandhali and Koa man and the Founder and Managing Director of Blackpath.
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He has more than twenty years’ experience across Rio Tinto, BHP, Fortescue and CS Energy, with senior accountability for major capital development, studies, portfolio governance, cultural heritage, closure and Country.
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At Rio Tinto, Christopher directed the West Pilbara studies portfolio. Following Juukan Gorge, he led the first two iron ore developments to progress through the investment process in the Pilbara: Western Range and Brockman Syncline 1.
At Western Range, he designed the co-management framework with Traditional Owners, the first nationally recognised framework of its kind, and took the project through feasibility to execution.
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At Brockman Syncline 1, on PKKP Country where Juukan Gorge occurred, he shaped the engagement model and led an alternative evaluation approach that gave explicit weight to Traditional Owner partnership, consent risk and long-term project value alongside commercial and technical considerations.
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The processes established across those developments helped lift the standard for how Rio Tinto progressed major developments after the crisis and have informed practice across the industry.
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Christopher has also chaired Rio Tinto’s Queensland closure steering committee, co-chaired Rio Tinto’s Elevating Indigenous Voices Committee, and led work addressing discrimination and harassment in the workplace.

Our work is governed by independence, conflict discipline and respect for cultural authority. We do not trade in access. We advise one party on a matter and are clear about who we serve.
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Blackpath is wholly Indigenous-owned and Supply Nation registered.
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Beyond our commercial work, we provide pro bono support to selected education and community initiatives.