Consultancy & advisory

A circle formed in Alaska.

How this began — Over two decades of travel, I've had the privilege of meeting Indigenous people of remarkable capacity — healers, Elders and knowledge-holders across the Pacific, North America and Australia. Two years ago I reached out to a number of them, and we gathered together in Alaska to talk about turning our collective skills toward service. For larger engagements, they bring that depth of talent to this consultancy.

There are two ways to work with us. Some pieces of work I take on directly — defined, specialist engagements drawing on my legal and research background. Others are longer engagements delivered with the full circle. Both are set out below.

Looking for a keynote, workshop or talk? That's on the Speaking page.

Direct engagements

Work I take on directly

Defined pieces of specialist work, commissioned by communities, research institutes, universities and organisations. Scoped individually rather than as a full-team engagement.

LAW

Customary law, translated into instruments a community can use

Turning a community's own customary law into contractual language it can hold and use as its own legal terms — in dealings with governments, universities, research institutes and companies. The instruments belong to the community, not to the counterparty.

  • Intellectual property and knowledge management plans owned and controlled by the community
  • Conditions of use, secondary use, re-consent and restriction provisions
  • Knowledge and data governance terms for research and commercial partnerships
  • Benefit-sharing, reciprocity and accountability provisions
PROV

Provenance, and repair where the chain is broken

Tracing where the knowledge behind a product, patent, collection or dataset originated — and mapping how obligations can be reconnected where the record has been lost, thinned or obscured along the way.

  • Provenance research across archival, ethnobotanical, patent, publication and supply-chain records
  • Repair pathways for work beginning with legacy samples, incomplete metadata, archived collections or public databases
  • Frameworks and decision tools for research, genomic and data contexts
  • Findings graded by strength of evidence, with the limits of the record stated plainly

A note on authority: this work produces evidence, instruments and options. It does not confer permission. Authority over Indigenous knowledge rests with the communities who hold it, and where a piece of work concerns a particular community's knowledge, that community is involved from the outset and is free to decline.

With the full circle

Longer engagements with the team

Sustained programs delivered with the Indigenous knowledge-holders introduced below, each bringing their own standing, expertise and community relationships.

NAT

Indigenous nation building, aligned with UNDRIP

Supporting communities to build governance structures, strategic policies and sustainable economic models aligned with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

  • Consultation on UNDRIP implementation for policy and governance
  • Leadership development and strategic planning workshops
  • Advisory on sustainable economic development and resource management
TRN

Team-delivered training programs

Ongoing, multi-session programs led by the circle rather than a single speaker — going beyond cultural competency to use Indigenous knowledge as a genuine engine for new thinking and problem-solving inside organisations.

  • Cultural competency and traditional knowledge application, delivered over time
  • Indigenous storytelling and oral tradition for effective internal communication
NET

Connecting organisations with knowledge holders

Facilitating meaningful, well-matched connections between organisations and Indigenous experts holding specialised knowledge in critical areas.

  • Identification and vetting of knowledge holders
  • Facilitated introductions and partnership building
  • Support for ongoing collaboration
EDU

Indigenising course content and training

Working with universities, corporations and institutions to integrate Indigenous knowledge into curricula and training in ways that genuinely strengthen it.

  • Collaborative development of indigenised curricula
  • Training for educators on Indigenous methodologies
  • Adapting corporate training programs accordingly
Why work with us

Our team brings together academic, cultural and field expertise that bridges Indigenous communities and modern institutions. We honour the wisdom of traditional knowledge while giving organisations the insights and partnerships they need for durable, culturally respectful outcomes — and we are as clear about what the evidence will not support as about what it will.

The people behind the circle

Our team

Len Clarke

Len Clarke

A Gunditjmara/Kirrae Whurrong Elder who has dedicated his life to Indigenous rights and social equity, pioneering models of cultural education, disability advocacy and land management. A respected Elder in the Victorian Koori Court system.

Ben Rhodd

Ben Rhodd

Citizen Potawatomi and Choctaw Nations of Oklahoma. A professional archaeologist with 46 years' experience in ethnographic research and oral histories, and an activist on Indian Boarding School issues.

Juanita M. Rhodd

Juanita M. Rhodd

An educator, counsellor and equine therapist with decades in special education, based in the Black Hills of South Dakota. With her husband Ben, she has coordinated the Spiritual Unity of the Tribes Gatherings.

Meda DeWitt

Meda DeWitt

A Tlingit traditional healer, ethno-herbalist and educator of the Naanyaa.aayí clan, lineage tracing to Shtuxéen kwaan. Meda blends ancestral wisdom with modern approaches to healing and environmental stewardship.

Natasha Hanisi

Natasha Hanisi

From Tatakamotonga and Mo'unga'one, Tonga, living on Darug lands in Sydney. Natasha designs equitable structural systems, and is currently partnering on decentralised digital identity systems grounded in traditional and modern law.

Chris Kavelin

Chris Kavelin

Chris works alongside this circle on larger engagements, and takes on the direct engagements above. Read his full bio →