In 1998, Cristiane Bourbonnais founded Cohesion Strategies as a brand consultancy, conceiving a process for planning and aligning brands with corporate business strategy. This alignment ensures maximum return on investment by deploying brands in the most effective and cohesive manner.

Based in Montreal, Cohesion has been engaged by leading national brands in many diverse business categories, helping to solve complex brand issues, both internally and externally.

Before Cohesion, Cristiane served as VP Marketing, Microcell, as a member of the executive team which raised investment and developed the telecom license application. She oversaw the planning, creation and development of the iconic Fido brand in terms of service delivery, employee training, retailing and marketing deployment.

Prior to Microcell, Cristiane had 15 years of agency experience, most recently as Group Account Director and Strategic Director for Bell Canada at Cossette. Accomplishments included the launch and development of the “Monsieur B” campaign, considered the best in the history of Quebec advertising and winner of countless local and international plaudits, including the People’s Choice award 3 years running.

Strategy Magazine awarded Cristiane the title “Agent of Change” while at Cossette and then named Fido “Client of the Year” while at Microcell. She was also honoured as “Woman of the Year” at the Salon des Femmes. As a recognized authority on brands and branding, Cristiane is constantly approached by the media for conferences, interviews and commentary. She has given numerous conferences on marketing and brand creation in Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, New York and London. She is a regular contributor in the magazine Infopresse and teaches brand planning at the InfoPresse Campus.

She was awarded the 2013 exStrat by the APCM (Association des professionnels de la communication et du marketing) as recognition for strategy excellence. In 2016, Inc. magazine named Cristiane one of the five consultants who are changing the world. She also appears in Infopresse ranking of figures among the major players in communications and marketing. In 2017 she presided the Concours STRAT jury of Infopresse. She is a Shared Value affiliate, a group initiated by Harvard’s Michael Porter to incorporate societal impact into company and brand strategies.