Monique Proud
Imagining Opportunities: Stories from the past, Experiences of the now, future aspirations
Monique is a proud Aboriginal woman with strong family ties to Cherbourg (Wakka Wakka country), but traditionally a descendant of the Gunggari people through her grandmother, and a descendant of the Kuku-Yalanji people through her grandfather. She comes from a long line of Aboriginal artists, innovators and creative thinkers and loves to incorporate Indigenous ways of knowing, being and doing into her work with corporates, not-for-profits and government. Monique has always been an out-of-the-box thinker with a vivid imagination. She enjoys tackling problems across a variety of industries utilising design thinking, combined with Indigenous methodologies to come up with innovative solutions.
Monique was born in Denver, Colorado. She wholeheartedly loves to travel. Monique views travel as one of life’s great learning experiences, amassing wisdom and knowledge from people and places across the globe. She absolutely loves being in and exploring the great outdoors. Favourite pastimes include spending time at the beach and going camping and hiking. On weekends, you will often find Monique at an art gallery, farmers market or café with friends soaking up the atmosphere.
After completing her honours degree in Sociology, Monique has worked in a variety of roles across the not-for-profit, government, tertiary education and private sectors. As the Owner and Managing Director of Cultural Grounding, Monique is driven to create opportunities that embed Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives and enable strong creative collaboration. Monique considers it is an absolute privilege to work within the consultancy space. She believes she is where she is today because of the remarkable people including, her Elders, who paved the way before her - creating opportunities, sharing knowledge and empowering others.
Most recently, Monique has led the design and delivery of creative strategies and cultural capability training programs for the executive teams of one of Australia’s largest entertainment groups, a Go8 University, a NASDAQ-listed Global Engineering Firm as well as an ASX-listed Australian Property Group. She thrives on delivering meaningful projects and creative strategies that resonate closely with her values that are solidly underpinned by positive social impact.