When a company the size of Rio Tinto says it wants to go deeper, the real question is what that means for how its people work with First Nations communities. The work has to match the ambition.
They had already invested in reconciliation plans, awareness training and good intent across the business. But intent without capability is a plan without a method. Their leaders had the understanding. What they needed was a way to turn it into action.
The Facts.
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Client
Rio Tinto
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Industry
Mining and Metals
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Region
Australia and global
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Programs
Impact Pathways and Indiji Index
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Website
Where they started.
Rio Tinto had already invested in reconciliation plans, awareness training and good intent across the business. But intent without capability is a plan without a method. Their leaders had the understanding. They needed a way to turn it into action. The first move was not training. It was measurement. Before anyone stepped into a workshop we established a baseline with leaders across Rio known as the Indiji Index. Not what people say they believe. What they actually think and how they act. That baseline is what makes everything that follows provable. Without it, change is a feeling. With it, change is a fact.
What we did.
Through the Indiji Index, an evidence-based Cultural Capability Audit, Indiji Corp assessed every participant. Attitudes and behaviours were tested and scored against the internationally recognised Cultural Proficiency Continuum. Then came the Impact Pathways Program. Two days. Face to face. The full program, every time. Co-facilitated with Traditional Owners. Truth-telling, history and the reality of now, delivered by the people who carry them. Not a slide deck about culture. Culture itself, present and felt. The program takes participants through traditional culture, the history of colonisation and its lasting effects, and the cultural realities shaping workplaces today. Structured, immersive, and designed to move people from understanding to action.
The proof.
This is the part most companies cannot show. Indiji Corp is able to. Attitude was measured before the program and again after. We measured behaviour at three months and again at six. The same method was used each time. So what changed is proven, not claimed. More than 300 leaders across the business have been through the program. The test is not how people feel as they walk out. It is how they act months later, when the workshop is long behind them. That is the change that lasts.
Recognised by the client.
In 2025, Rio Tinto presented Indiji Corp with its Care, Courage and Curiosity award at the annual Supplier Recognition Gala. Care, Courage and Curiosity are Rio Tinto’s own core values. This is the award given to a supplier that lives them.
The category recognises a business that places people at the heart of its operations and demonstrates a commitment to building safe, respectful and inclusive workplaces and culture. Indiji Corp did not win this award for a single project. They won it for the sustained shift their work created across the business. Measured, proven and still holding.