McGill Professor | Initiative Marketing founder | FieldEdge Academy founder and owner
Sol Tanguay, PhD
Marketing Strategy + Customer Experience + Data Intelligence
Academic research and 30+ years of consulting experience for organizations that want CRM, CX, e-commerce, and analytics to become measurable operating capability.
A rare blend of professor, consultant, and trainer.
Decision-makers can enter through teaching, consulting, or team development. The throughline is practical transformation grounded in research.
Professor
Information Systems professor at McGill University's Desautels Faculty of Management, teaching e-business, analytics, IT consulting, and digital media marketing.
Consultant
Founder of Initiative Marketing, advising organizations on CRM strategy, CX design, e-commerce transformation, and marketing analytics.
Trainer
Founder and owner of FieldEdge Academy, the learning institute of Initiativenet, building sales acceleration and customer experience mastery programs for enterprise teams.
About Sol
Research discipline, consulting judgment, and classroom clarity.
Sol Tanguay works at the intersection of digital transformation, customer experience, and data-driven marketing.
Sol has more than 30 years of professional experience, including leading teams in B2C and B2B companies. His work has always revolved around technology in sales and marketing, and today his business runs on a network of highly qualified professionals and an army of AI agents. His visionary 2005–2013 Ph.D. thesis examined self-service technology adoption and the role of human interaction, topics more relevant than ever in today's AI world. He holds seven diplomas earned over three decades of university study, and combines academic rigor with practical management sense.
Based in Montreal, Sol brings together an HEC Montréal doctorate in Information Systems/Marketing, an MBA from Université Laval, and a B.Com. in Marketing from HEC Montréal.
That research still shapes his work on customer experience, CRM adoption, and the way organizations turn digital investments into customer value.
The working philosophy is direct: listen first, structure the problem clearly, then build practical systems that teams can actually use.
B.Com. in Marketing, HEC Montréal.
MBA, Université Laval.
Ph.D. in Information Systems/Marketing and founding of Initiative Marketing.
Professor at McGill University's Desautels Faculty of Management.
Consulting and executive education across Canada, the Americas, and Europe.
Academic rigorDoctoral research, business school teaching, and evidence-based frameworks.
Enterprise practiceHands-on strategy and implementation experience with complex organizations.
Bilingual deliveryEnglish and French facilitation for Montreal and international teams.
Measurable learningPrograms designed to move capability, adoption, and customer metrics.
Teaching at McGill
Teaching what works. Implementing what is taught.
Courses connect information systems, marketing, analytics, and consulting practice so students can see how strategy becomes operating decisions.
INSY 440
E-Business
Digital business models, e-commerce execution, and the operational choices behind online growth.
RETL 631
Digital Media Marketing
Customer acquisition, media planning, measurement, and marketing technology in digital channels.
INSY 339
IT Consulting
Problem framing, stakeholder management, recommendations, and client-ready communication.
EN/FR
Bilingual Facilitation
Clear delivery for English and French-speaking learners across classroom, workshop, and enterprise contexts.
Initiative Marketing
Consulting for transformation work that cannot be solved by templates.
Sol helps organizations connect customer strategy, technology choices, team adoption, and measurement into one coherent operating model.
CRM Strategy & Implementation
Align CRM goals with customer journeys, frontline behavior, data requirements, and executive metrics.
Readiness assessment
Adoption roadmap
Governance and measurement
Customer Experience Design
Map moments that matter, identify friction, and turn experience strategy into service standards and metrics.
Journey mapping
CX measurement model
Service design workshops
E-Commerce & Digital Transformation
Clarify digital growth priorities, operating needs, channel roles, and the customer data behind better decisions.
Channel strategy
Technology alignment
Operational handoff
Marketing Analytics & Data Strategy
Build dashboards, decision routines, and measurement frameworks that connect marketing activity to customer value.
KPI architecture
Dashboard design
Insight-to-action cadence
Executive Education & Corporate Training
Translate strategy into workshops, tools, and learning experiences managers can take back to their teams.
Leadership workshops
Sales and CX enablement
Custom learning design
Change & Adoption Enablement
Support rollout with stakeholder alignment, communication rhythms, and field-ready tools.
Stakeholder mapping
Manager enablement
Adoption checkpoints
1
Problem
Define the customer, operational, and measurement gaps before recommending tools.
2
Approach
Co-design the roadmap with leaders, managers, and teams who will own the change.
3
Results
Track adoption, experience quality, cycle time, and revenue-facing indicators.
FieldEdge Academy
Sales and customer experience programs built for teams in motion.
FieldEdge Academy focuses on capability building that feels practical, energetic, and measurable.
Sales acceleration
The Hunt
A program for field-based and consultative sales teams that need stronger prospecting discipline, opportunity focus, and customer conversation quality.
Field teamsPipeline disciplineSales lift
CX mastery
The Journey
A customer experience transformation program that helps teams understand friction, design better interactions, and connect service behavior to CX metrics.
CX teamsJourney thinkingMeasurable change
Research & thought leadership
The bridge between self-service adoption, CX, CRM, and marketing transformation.
Sol's doctoral research on self-service technology adoption informs a practical view of modern customer experience: technology only creates value when customers and employees can adopt it with confidence.
CX Audit Framework
A future downloadable tool for diagnosing touchpoints, friction, ownership, and measurement gaps.
CRM Readiness Assessment
A practical pre-implementation lens for data quality, process fit, team adoption, and governance.
E-Commerce Benchmark Report
A resource concept for comparing digital channel maturity, customer data use, and growth levers.
Data-Driven Marketing Guide
A short guide on how analytics can improve customer lifetime value decisions.
Speaking & workshops
Executive sessions for leaders navigating customer and digital change.
Available formats include keynotes, half-day workshops, webinars, leadership offsites, and custom training delivery.
CRM strategy that survives implementation
How to make CRM choices that match customer journeys, sales behavior, and data reality.
CX transformation beyond slogans
How to move from customer promises to experience standards, ownership, and feedback loops.
Data-driven marketing for managers
How leaders can turn dashboards into action, not just reporting artifacts.
In their words
What clients and colleagues say.
Recommendations written on LinkedIn by people Sol has worked with, reproduced as they were written.
Contact
Start with the problem you are trying to solve.
Use the inquiry form to route teaching, consulting, training, and speaking requests. The first conversation should clarify goals, stakeholders, timing, and what success needs to look like.
Service pathways
ConsultingCRM, CX, e-commerce, analytics, and transformation advisory.
TrainingFieldEdge Academy programs and custom executive education.
TeachingAcademic inquiries, course context, and guest sessions.
