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.

Dr. McLaughlin completed his Doctorate whilst living and working alongside some of the World's oldest cultures, in some of the World's most geographically remote locations, discovering new ways to provide legal protection to Indigenous cultural practices - a free copy is available here:

remote communities

From lawyer, to academic, to executive leading Local Government and national corporations, some with $100M+ annual budgets and asset bases in excess of $1.8B, 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 & research. We are 'professionals enhancing community-led development.' Our work is everywhere.

Dr Chris McLaughlin

Founder and Practice Director

Government and independent

our mission

We offer our clients professional services in law, business strategy and research, 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).

we care about community

We are different because as well as providing exceptional professional service, we care about the communities we live and work in, and we've made important business decisions to back this up.

1. We are paperless

We have seen enough destruction of our forestry, so we embrace cutting-edge technology to seamlessly and securely offer our services to you, anywhere, anytime.

2. We communicate smarter

We reduce our carbon footprint by investing in cutting-edge technology to communicate smarter and more often with you, utilising video conferencing and cloud-based applications. Pay for expertise, not frequent flyer points.

3. We work where we are

We don't pay for boardrooms, so you don't have to! We are entirely decentralised and mobile, working wherever we are, with no commuting to and from work, significantly reducing our carbon footprint. If you need office space, just leave it to us. We have secured cracking deals on premium 3rd party office space by the hour, to ensure you only pay for what you need.

4. We champion local and Indigenous opportunity

We create and promote local and Indigenous opportunity, both economic and cultural.