Olivia McKendrick is from Cambridge, England. A lawyer by background, she worked in London, New York, Hong Kong and Shanghai and was a corporate partner at Linklaters, one of the world’s largest law firms before life took an unexpected turn.
Alongside Chris Rainier, she is the co-founder and Director of The Cultural Sanctuaries Foundation and oversees the charity’s projects from Mexico, Peru and Canada to Mongolia, Polynesia and Papua New Guinea.
The Cultural Sanctuaries Foundation is a US-based 501c3 non-profit focused on supporting and protecting endangered cultures and languages in double hotspots – where both culture and language and biodiversity are endangered.
Chris and Olivia will be speaking together at Summit Photo 2026.
They are honoured to be invited to talk at RGS’ Summit Photo event and will focus their presentation on Why Culture Matters - and the Link between Indigenous Knowledge, Conservation and Exploration.
To a backdrop of Chris’ images taken over the last four decades of indigenous peoples and sacred places, they will discuss the importance of cultural and linguistic diversity and the cultural revitalisation that they are seeing across the world.
