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Marketing strategy counsel · Boston

Counsel for owners who are done guessing.

Calder & Wren is a two-partner strategy consultancy. We take twelve clients a year, work the engagements ourselves, and measure our counsel in enterprise value.

Request a conversation How an engagement works

No juniors. The partner you meet is the partner who does the work.

The study, Beacon Hill
Where every engagement begins
0
Years in practice
0+
Engagements completed
$0M
Client enterprise value created
0
Clients per year, by design
The practice

Strategy is a senior craft. We kept it that way.

A partner's desk at Calder and Wren
A partner's desk, mid-engagement

Most strategy work is done by the youngest people in the room and presented by the oldest. We founded Calder & Wren in 2012 to invert that: two senior practitioners, no leverage model, no deliverables theater. You get judgment, in writing, with our names on it.

i.

Positioning & message

What you are, to whom, against whom, and why it wins. Settled on paper before a dollar of media.

ii.

Pricing & offer architecture

Where the margin actually lives. Usually the fastest path to enterprise value we know.

iii.

Marketing organization & spend

What to build in-house, what to buy, what to stop. Includes agency selection and oversight.

iv.

Standing counsel

A partner on call through the year: board meetings, hires, campaigns, acquisitions.

The engagement

Twelve weeks, properly spent.

The core engagement follows the same arc every time. It has survived 130 clients because it works. Scroll through it.

Weeks 1-2

Listening

We interview your customers, your lost deals, your team, and you. Separately. The gap between those four stories is usually the whole diagnosis.

Output: the diagnostic memo
Weeks 3-5

The numbers

Unit economics, pricing, channel math, competitive spend. We rebuild your marketing P&L until it tells the truth.

Output: the economics workbook
Weeks 6-8

Position

The strategic choice: what to be, what to charge, where to play, what to stop doing. Written as a two-page argument, not an 80-slide deck.

Output: the position paper
Weeks 9-11

The plan

Sequenced quarters, budgets, hires, agency briefs, and the three numbers to watch. Built with the people who will run it.

Output: the operating plan
Week 12

The handoff

We present to your board or leadership, take the hard questions ourselves, and stay for ninety days of adjustment as it meets reality.

Output: conviction, shared
Evidence

Counsel, priced against outcomes.

Industrial services · $40M revenue
+$2.1M EBITDA

18 months after repositioning from generalist contractor to compliance specialist, with pricing rebuilt to match.

The turn: they were the cheapest bid in a market that buys certainty. We raised prices 22% and won more.

Consumer brand · $12M revenue
2.4x value at exit

Sold 3 years after engagement at a multiple the banker attributed directly to category position and margin structure.

The turn: killed two of four product lines. The company got smaller, then dramatically more valuable.

B2B software · $8M ARR
-38% CAC

Same pipeline target, one third less spend, after narrowing to a single vertical and rewriting the message around it.

The turn: stopped marketing to everyone who could buy. Started marketing to the 400 firms that should.

"They are the only advisors I have ever paid who told me to spend less with them. I have sent them three of my friends' companies since."

Owner, industrial services group · client since 2019

The partners

Two names on the door. Both in the room.

We have no associates, no analysts, and no bench. That is the point.

Ellis Calder, partner

Ellis Calder

Partner · Positioning & message

Twenty years across brand strategy at two global consultancies, then CMO of a $200M industrial group. Ellis writes the position papers and takes the board meetings.

Harvard Business School · MBA 2003 Guest lecturer · MIT Sloan, pricing strategy
Maren Wren, partner

Maren Wren

Partner · Economics & organization

Former operating partner at a lower-middle-market private equity firm, where she rebuilt marketing economics across 14 portfolio companies. Maren owns the workbook and the plan.

Wharton · BS Economics 1999 Board director · two founder-owned companies
How we engage

Three ways in. Fees on the table.

First

The diagnostic

Four weeks

The listening phase as a standalone: interviews, economics review, and a memo naming the three decisions that matter most. Many clients stop here, satisfied.

Fixed fee · $28,000
Second

The engagement

Twelve weeks

The full arc: diagnosis through operating plan, with both partners on the work and a 90-day adjustment period after the handoff.

Fixed fee · $120,000
Ongoing

Standing counsel

Annual

For past engagement clients only: a partner on call through the year, quarterly reviews, and a seat at the table when it counts.

Annual · $60,000

Fees are fixed and quoted in writing before we begin. If we do not believe we can return a multiple of the fee, we decline the work and say why.

Fair questions

An agency sells execution and is paid more when you spend more. We sell judgment, at a fixed fee, and frequently advise clients to spend less. We do not take media commissions, implementation work, or referral fees from agencies we recommend.

Because there are two of us and the work does not compress. Twelve is the number at which every client gets a partner's full attention. We have held it since 2015, including the years we could have doubled it.

Owner-led companies between roughly $5M and $150M in revenue. Below that, the fee is better spent elsewhere and we will say so. Above that, you likely need a different kind of firm.

No. We design it, brief the people who will run it, and stay available through standing counsel. Keeping implementation out of our fee is what keeps the advice honest.

Begin

A conversation, not a pitch.

Tell us where the business stands and what has you thinking about strategy now. If we are not the right fit, we will tell you who is; we keep a short list of firms we trust.

We respond personally within two business days. If we are at capacity, we will say so and offer the next opening rather than stretch the standard.

Request a conversation

Read by Ellis and Maren. Not a sales team, because there is not one.

Held in confidence. NDA available before any detail is shared.

Received, with thanks.

One of us will reply within two business days. If it is a fit, the first conversation is an hour, without charge.

Request a conversation