Paige Arnof-Fenn is living her best life.
A New Orleans transplant, Arnof-Fenn left Louisiana to attend Stanford University and then Harvard for her MBA. Starting out as a financial analyst on Wall Street, she switched gears and worked in marketing and brand management in Fortune 500 companies like Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, and others like Zipcar and Inc.com. That was until 9/11 changed everything and many companies eliminated or curtailed their marketing efforts. Suddenly, Arnof-Fenn had lots of free time.
Since few were traveling post 9/11, Arnof-Fenn and her husband went to a lot of holiday parties near their Cambridge home. She ran into friends from college and business school who asked her for marketing advice. Multiple requests for business cards later, Arnof-Fenn saw, as her husband put it, “the flashing red light” in front of her and launched Mavens & Moguls, a global marketing strategy consulting firm whose clients range from early-stage start-ups to Fortune 500 companies like Colgate, Virgin, Microsoft, and The New York Times Company.
Soon, Arnof-Fenn had a roster of great clients. “Boston is the best place to be a woman entrepreneur,” she said. “It’s a small community so it’s easier to meet people.”
For Mavens & Moguls, Arnof-Fenn has gathered approximately four dozen individual contractors. These free-lancers are experts in web design, PR, content creation, or are CMO generalists. Arnof-Fenn also pulls from her sizable pool of talent to serve as de facto marketing teams for small and medium-sized firms that don’t need marketing departments of their own. Her contractors do market research, create logos and taglines, and provide strategic help during crunch periods or when staff members take sabbaticals or vacations or go on maternity leave. Arnof-Fenn’s team is based in fourteen cities across the United States. She also has clients and colleagues in major cities in Kuwait, Mexico, Canada, Bahrain, and Thailand. Most contractors work virtually, but some travel on-site, as needed.
Arnof-Fenn said, “Mavens & Moguls is industry agnostic. We work with consumer, tech, and non-profit companies. That means I can get involved with organizations and people I enjoy working with while I continue to write and speak. It’s fulfilling.”
As busy as she is, Arnof-Fenn still finds time for her favorite things; Boston sports, speaking French (preferably, in France), jazz, and Tai Chi. “I’ve been doing Tai Chi for fifteen years. I love it! It really helps with focus,” said Arnof-Fenn. She and her husband, also an entrepreneur, frequent jazz clubs in the Boston area and make a yearly pilgrimage to the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival to see her old hometown and hear as much jazz as they can.
Arnof-Fenn is happy and in-demand. “Mavens & Moguls is seventeen years old,” she says. “People didn’t think you could outsource your brand and marketing, but here we are. This wasn’t the path I thought I’d follow, but it’s led me to a great place.”
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