Garth McCallum-Keeler
Managing Partner, Chief Strategy Officer
Calcium
A Societal Approach
Garth McCallum-Keeler is a strategist who, for more than 20 years, has marshaled deep scientific, product, customer, and even societal knowledge to help healthcare companies and brands chart—and then follow—the most productive paths forward.
Garth began his career as a sociologist, teaching undergraduate classes and working at the University of Massachusetts in the Center for Survey Research (CSR). The field of sociology helped to equip Garth with the strong analytical and data-related skills that are vital to his strategist role. While working at the CSR, he even co-authored a widely cited article on smoking cessation promotion that continues to impact the content and tone of educational advertising in this area.
“Garth has a restless mind and is always in learning mode,” says Steve Hamburg, Managing Partner, Chief Creative Officer at Calcium. “While he respects the patterns and viewpoints that governed the past, he’s even more interested in the ideas and behaviors driving the future. Garth combines an academic’s sharp, inquisitive mind with a marketer’s grounded—but aspirational—sense of what’s achievable. As healthcare—and, yes, the world—have become more complex, thinkers like Garth are even more indispensable for the way they distill complexity into simplicity and generate solutions that are both elegant and effective.”
Garth has extensive experience working in U.S. and global biotech/specialty markets. His range of expertise extends from pipeline work to in-line marketing efforts. Garth also brings industry-side experience to his agency role, having held Director-level marketing positions at Genzyme, Insmed, and Dey Pharma. And his category experience encompasses oncology, dermatology, renal, rheumatology, endocrinology, pulmonology, genetic disorders, and others. In all these disciplines, Garth has demonstrated a special ability to master both the scientific intricacies as well as the “big picture” landscape.
This experience also helped in his previous role as SVP, Managing Director at AgencyRx where he drove revenue substantially through a mix of new client and organic growth as well as led the establishment of a San Francisco office. And now, in his current role at Calcium, he helped lead agency growth with major account wins in a variety of categories, including rare diseases.
