CALANDACALANDACONSULTORES Y ESTRATEGIA
Community dialogue and territorial engagement in Colombia
Comprehensive Advisory

We build social license to operate where others only manage conflicts.

We support companies and institutions in designing comprehensive strategies to build legitimacy, trust, and lasting agreements with communities, unions, local and regional authorities, and other stakeholders.

Social license cannot be bought. It must be earned.

Our methodology Let's Talk
The balance that sustains Company Community State

A team that has led community engagement processes, union and worker negotiations, institutional transformation, and governance in complex environments

Where we have added value

Sectors we have served

MiningAgribusinessInfrastructureTechnology & TelecommunicationsRural DevelopmentPublic SectorFree Trade ZonesInternational CooperationPublic UtilitiesEnergyPension FundsImpact InvestmentPortsMedical CannabisMiningAgribusinessInfrastructureTechnology & TelecommunicationsRural DevelopmentPublic SectorFree Trade ZonesInternational CooperationPublic UtilitiesEnergyPension FundsImpact InvestmentPortsMedical Cannabis
The challenge

Legal permits alone are not enough.

A project can have permits, technical studies, environmental licenses, financial closing, and institutional backing. But if it lacks trust in the territory and internal or external governance, it remains vulnerable.

In Colombia and Latin America, many projects stall not because of technical failures, but due to social conflicts, loss of legitimacy, poorly managed expectations, adverse narratives, or agreements that fail to hold over time.

Broken trust

When communities or stakeholders no longer believe in the company, every decision becomes suspect.

Social investment without ownership

It's not enough to build infrastructure or run programs if the territory sees them as unilateral handouts or obligatory compensation.

Escalating conflicts

The absence of legitimate dialogue channels turns manageable differences into operational, reputational, or legal crises.

The difference between a vulnerable project and a sustainable one usually lies in the quality of the relationships it builds.

Comprehensive advisory

Social License to Operate Strategy

Design · Build · Protect

We design, build, and protect the social license that enables operating with legitimacy, trust, and lasting agreements.

Territorial governance session with local stakeholders and mapsTerritorial governance · Colombia

Social licensing that endures over time

Environmental licenses, regulatory permits, and enabling titles are indispensable. But in certain productive sectors, with complex stakeholder groups, or in difficult territories, there is an additional license that no authority can grant and whose absence can put even the best-structured investments at risk: the social license to operate.

At CALANDA, we help companies and institutions design a strategy to build that license, integrating governance, collaborative negotiation, development communication, corporate sustainability, and shared value creation.

We also provide strategic support for Prior Consultation processes with ethnic communities where territorial and regulatory conditions require it, integrating this support within the broader Social License to Operate strategy.

We don't believe in social investment understood as a succession of handouts. We believe in building trust, shared responsibility, and local ownership.

Because the projects that endure are not those that simply obtain permits. They are those that make their presence meaningful to the territory, its workers, its communities, and their other stakeholders.

A different but proven methodology

We work before the conflict

Most stakeholder engagement strategies are activated after conflict has already appeared. We identify risks early, understand interests, design dialogue rules, build agreements, and measure trust over time.

International rigor

A Harvard methodology adapted to Colombia

We incorporate collaborative negotiation and agreement-building methodologies from Harvard University, adapted to the social, political, cultural, and territorial reality of Colombia.

Why CALANDA?

From the boardroom and from the field

Social license is built by understanding simultaneously the realities of communities and workers, the perspectives of local and regional authorities, regulatory requirements, operational challenges, the political dynamics of the area, the public conversation, and investor expectations.

Our own method

ACUERDO Method

ACUERDO

A methodology to anticipate conflicts, build legitimacy, and sustain long-term relationships.

ACUERDO integrates territorial analysis, collaborative negotiation, governance, development communication, and shared value to transform fragile relationships into verifiable trust.

We map stakeholders, risks, interests, leadership, legitimacy, historical conflicts, and power dynamics to understand what can enable or block a project.

CALANDA team working in the field
Services

Other Services

CALANDA also supports companies and institutions with other challenges: engagement with key stakeholders, public affairs, reputational communications, social ESG, shared value, crisis management, territorial narrative, and digital amplification.

We design comprehensive solutions or targeted interventions based on the project stage, risk level, and each organization's specific needs.

We integrate strategy, territory, communications, and advocacy to build trust, legitimacy, and capacity for action in complex environments.

Strategic Engagement & Advocacy

We build engagement pathways with public, private, community, and institutional stakeholders to open dialogue channels, generate trust, and legitimately influence relevant decisions.

Public Affairs

We support the reading of the political, regulatory, and reputational landscape to anticipate risks, identify opportunities, and act with timeliness, legitimacy, and effectiveness.

Strategic Communications & Spokesperson Training

We design narratives, key messages, and positioning frameworks, and deliver spokesperson training to strengthen credibility, trust, and legitimacy with stakeholders.

Land & Environmental Management

We provide comprehensive support for land and environmental management throughout the project lifecycle — from negotiation, acquisition, and easement setup, to environmental permitting and the design of biodiversity and conservation offsets.

Crisis & Conflict Management

We design strategic responses to social, reputational, institutional, or territorial crises, combining political analysis, communications, negotiation, and scenario management.

Digital Strategy for Legitimacy

We transform field stories, agreements, and learnings into measurable digital strategies, content, and campaigns that amplify trust and make impact visible.

Our team

Our Team

Public, private, territorial, communications, and digital expertise in service of projects that need to build legitimacy.

Miguel Samper

Miguel Samper

Strategy, public affairs, territory and stakeholder engagement

Attorney and consultant with over 20 years of experience in public policy, rural development, justice, land, sustainability, and institutional engagement. He has held senior government positions, including Director of the National Land Agency and Deputy Minister of Justice, and has worked on processes where communities, companies, authorities, regulation, and high-impact public decisions converge.

His career combines technical expertise, political reading of territories, and the ability to build agreements with institutional, rural, ethnic, community, and business stakeholders. He has led agendas on rural reform, transitional justice, drug policy, social and land management, environmental management, and public-private coordination, with a practical understanding of how agreements are built in complex contexts.

Paula López

Paula López

Development communication, strategic communications and spokesperson training

Journalist and communications consultant with over 20 years of experience across media, the public sector, private enterprise, and international cooperation. She has worked in complex territories and sensitive sectors including energy, rural development, peace, environmental transition, human rights, public policy, and impact investment.

Her strength lies in reading contexts, listening to communities, understanding the public conversation, and turning complex information into clear, credible, and useful messages. She has led engagement with local, regional, and national media, as well as community outreach processes, reputation management, spokesperson training, public campaigns, and institutional communications during moments of high political tension.

Estefanía Albornoz

Estefanía Albornoz

Digital audiences, content, positioning and measurement

Marketing and communications professional with over 12 years of experience in campaigns, content, SEO, social media, paid advertising, automation, demand generation, analytics, and community building. She has worked with agencies, tech companies, public entities, social organizations, and international cooperation bodies.

Her experience allows her to translate technical subjects into accessible, engaging, and culturally relevant content. She has led cross-functional teams, developed multi-channel campaigns, designed audience-specific narratives, and used data to improve reach, conversation, positioning, and conversion.

Raúl Díaz

Raúl Díaz

Pedagogy, narrative design, cultural communication and message preparation

Consultant, researcher, and trainer in communications with over 15 years of experience in verbal and non-verbal communication, spokesperson coaching, media engagement, pedagogy, and strategic message development.

His work bridges institutional communication and communication understood as cultural practice: not just what is said, but how it is said, who says it, where it is heard from, and what meaning it produces for each audience. He has supported public entities, multilateral organizations, universities, and social organizations in participation, community ownership, inclusion, and communication training processes.

Catalina Albornoz

Catalina Albornoz

Writing, legal analysis, content and institutional clarity

Attorney, writer, and specialist in legal and institutional content, with experience in specialized journalism, research, interviewing, editing, regulatory analysis, storytelling, and content production for print media, digital portals, social media, and corporate leaders.

For several years she was part of the Ámbito Jurídico team, where she covered judicial sources, produced reports, conducted interviews, and created content on legal, institutional, and national affairs. She has also worked in digital content and positioning for corporate clients, combining rigor, sensitivity, and the ability to synthesize.

CALANDA

A team with the technical rigor to understand companies and the territorial experience to build trust across Colombia.

International rigor and real experience in Colombia

Methodology

We integrate collaborative negotiation, governance, and conflict resolution tools developed at world-leading academic institutions, adapted to the Colombian reality.

Territory

Direct experience working with rural communities, unions, ethnic groups, local authorities, public institutions, and territories with high social complexity.

Narrative

We use development communication as a tool to build ownership, trust, legitimacy, and a sense of shared responsibility.

Shared value

We connect the territory's priorities with the organization's objectives, avoiding dependency relationships and strengthening local capacities.

Digital amplification

We transform field stories, agreements, and impacts into content, campaigns, and measurement frameworks that strengthen reputation and visibility.

— Shared track record

A perspective built across multiple sectors

The team's experience spans the public sector, private enterprise, international cooperation, sustainability, communications, rural development, justice, energy, mining, technology, and impact investment.

Government & public policyRural development & territoryEnergy & transitionMining & sustainabilityJustice & peacebuildingInternational cooperationImpact investmentCommunications & reputationDigital marketing & positioningESG & shared value
Colombian territory at dusk
— Let's build trust

The best projects are not those that simply obtain permits. They are those that build trust.

Let's talk about how to build a social license that stands the test of time.

CALANDA · CONSULTORES Y ESTRATEGIA