Helping Organizations Build Capacity for What Comes Next
We bring practical experience and structured thinking to strategic, governance, and operational questions.
Return HomeOur Story
Clarent was founded in Calgary in 2018 by professionals who had spent years working inside organizations rather than advising them from the outside. This operating experience shapes how we approach consulting work. We understand the difference between recommendations that look good on paper and those that can actually be implemented within real organizational constraints.
Our practice focuses on three core areas where organizations often need external perspective: understanding their current state through structured diagnostics, developing coherent strategic plans that translate vision into action, and establishing or improving governance structures that serve the organization well. These aren't separate services but interconnected dimensions of organizational health.
We work primarily with mid-sized organizations in Albertaābusinesses, nonprofits, and professional associations that have moved beyond startup phase but haven't yet reached the scale where they maintain large internal strategy or governance functions. These organizations benefit from senior consulting support but don't need the overhead that comes with large consulting firms.
The name Clarent comes from Arthurian legend, where it represented wisdom and careful judgment rather than dramatic conquest. This captures our approach: we help organizations make steady, thoughtful progress rather than pursuing transformative initiatives that rarely deliver their promised results.
Our Team
The consultants leading Clarent engagements bring substantive operating experience from various sectors, combined with formal training in organizational development and strategic management.
Robert Harrison
Principal Consultant
Former COO with fifteen years leading operations in professional services firms. Specializes in strategic planning and organizational development with focus on practical implementation.
Sarah Mitchell
Senior Advisor
Board governance specialist with experience serving on nonprofit and corporate boards. Works with organizations establishing or refining their governance structures and board effectiveness.
David Leung
Strategic Analyst
Financial and operational analyst with background in management consulting. Leads diagnostic engagements and provides quantitative analysis supporting strategic planning work.
Our Professional Standards
We maintain rigorous standards in how we conduct engagements, handle client information, and deliver our work.
Confidentiality
All client information remains strictly confidential. We sign NDAs as standard practice and maintain protocols around document handling and discussion of client matters.
Professional Development
Our consultants maintain memberships in relevant professional associations and complete continuing education in organizational development, strategy, and governance.
Conflict Management
We maintain clear policies around conflicts of interest and declining work where we cannot provide objective advice or where client interests might conflict.
Clear Agreements
Every engagement begins with written agreement outlining scope, timeline, deliverables, and fees. We avoid ambiguous arrangements that lead to misunderstandings.
Quality Assurance
All deliverables undergo internal review before presentation to clients. We maintain quality standards for analysis, writing, and presentation materials.
Client Partnership
We view engagements as partnerships where client knowledge combines with our frameworks and external perspective to produce better outcomes than either could achieve alone.
What Guides Our Work
Implementation Over Theory
We care more about whether recommendations can actually be put into practice than whether they align with current management theory. This means sizing initiatives to actual organizational capacity and working within real resource constraints rather than imagining what would be possible with unlimited resources.
Honest Assessment
We provide candid observations about what we see, even when those observations are uncomfortable. Organizations hire consultants partly to hear perspectives that might not emerge from internal discussions. We take this responsibility seriously while maintaining respect for the people working inside the organization.
Local Understanding
Being based in Calgary means we understand the Alberta business environment, the economic cycles that affect organizations here, and the specific challenges that come with operating in this market. This context informs our recommendations in ways that generic consulting frameworks cannot.
Measured Progress
Most organizations benefit more from steady improvement in their core capabilities than from attempting dramatic transformations. We help clients identify the next reasonable step forward rather than proposing comprehensive overhauls that consume resources without delivering proportional value.
Work With Clarent
If you're facing strategic questions, governance challenges, or simply want objective assessment of where your organization stands, we'd be glad to discuss how we might help.