Build and improve your working system
Choose reliable sources, organise context, connect useful tools and improve a repeatable task. Judge both time saved and quality of work.
Practical skills for future leaders
Build with AI. Decide with evidence. Bring people with you.
I help students and future leaders use AI to prepare better, understand what matters to others, defend a recommendation and turn agreement into action. My teaching draws on enterprise sales, developing colleagues and building the tools I use every day.
Bachelor’s, Master’s and executive education · English and French
Quentin Lemarié · Applied AI, evidence and influence
The Architect mindset
From capability to ownership
The Architect owns the Why, co-designs the How.
Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle
Start with Why, then explain How and What.
The current transition · ownership
The Architect owns the Why, co-designs the How, delegates production and remains accountable.
A proposed future · three responsibilities
Purpose remains human-owned. Production combines design and execution. Validation remains continuous.
- WhyThe purpose, cause or belief behind the work.
- HowHow we deliver on the purpose (methodology, principles).
- WhatThe output (product, deliverable, features).
- Own the WhyAI can help articulate purpose. People choose what matters and own the stakes.
- HowHow we deliver on the purpose (methodology, principles).
- WhatThe output (product, deliverable, features).
- Control & iterationCheck, challenge and improve throughout the work.
- PurposeHumans choose the outcome, the trade-offs and the responsibility they accept.
- ProductionDesign and execution blend as people and AI develop the approach and its outputs together.
- ValidationAI can assist with checks. Human judgment remains accountable for quality, relevance and consequences.
Everyday examples: How → What
| How · shared approach | What · concrete output |
|---|---|
| AnalyseSelect evidence and a method | Interactive dashboard |
| Evaluation criteriaWeigh options and trade-offs | Evaluation result |
| CommunicateShape the message for its audience | Email writing |
| OrganiseSequence tasks and dependencies | Action plan |
17 years
International enterprise sales · Amsterdam, London and Paris
Gartner
Enterprise sales in research and advisory
Coursera
Enterprise learning sales and field enablement
Capgemini
Enterprise customer experience through my work at Coursera
Two complementary skills
Expand what you can do. Make it useful to others.
Start with a small knowledge base in NotebookLM or a ChatGPT or Claude project. Connect research, preparation and follow-through in a repeatable workflow. Then practise the judgment and conversations that turn this preparation into a useful decision.
Use that capacity with judgment and influence
Understand the real need, test assumptions, make a well-supported recommendation, negotiate priorities and agree useful commitments.
No programming prerequisite. Forgia shows how these foundations can extend into connected workflows. AI can help throughout; learners must be able to explain, check and adapt the result.
The principles I teach
Three habits for decisions that move work forward.
01
Start with why
Understand the desired outcome, the people involved and the reason to act now. Explore the request before recommending a solution.
Useful in a customer conversation, a project brief or a request for resources. Golden Circle as a questioning framework.
02
Earn the right to challenge
Bring evidence, insight and relevant comparisons that help others think. Check the comparison, expose your assumptions and test them against another person’s perspective.
Critical thinking and methods drawn from Challenger and value selling: distinguish facts from hypotheses and support your recommendation.
03
Build the next step together
Agree what success looks like, who needs to contribute and what happens next. Negotiate trade-offs and turn agreement into clear commitments.
A proposal, a negotiation or a shared project plan: outcomes, owners, milestones and evidence of progress.
Skills for everyday work
Beyond a sales role. Grounded in practice.
Choose the situation your students need to handle. The same discipline—understand, substantiate, agree—takes a different form in each context.
Prepare a decision or defend a project
Research a situation, challenge an attractive but weak claim, compare options and present a recommendation.
An evidence brief and a recommendation the learner can explain.
Work with people and negotiate priorities
Understand another team’s constraints, ask useful questions, negotiate scope or resources and agree responsibilities.
A stakeholder conversation and a shared action plan.
Create value in a customer relationship
Apply the full commercial sequence: relevant outreach, discovery, insight, quantified value, negotiation and joint execution.
A specialist sales course with a connected set of practical outputs.
One specialist pathway · strategic sales
One account. Six connected stages.
For a commercial programme, follow one fictional account from first research to a shared execution plan. Build useful tools and practise the decisions they support. For management and project programmes, we select and adapt the relevant activities. Depth and duration are agreed with the school.
- 01
Your account intelligence base
You build
A source collection, account context and an update routine.
You decide and practise
What is established, what is an interpretation and what remains a hypothesis.
Practical outcome
A reusable account base with dated sources and uncertainty visible.
- 02
Strategic sales principles
You build
A preparation and reflection workflow around the customer’s why.
You decide and practise
Useful discovery and where you have earned the right to challenge. Golden Circle as a questioning framework.
Practical outcome
A value hypothesis and discovery questions you can defend.
- 03
Prospect with relevance at scale
You build
An AI research and drafting workflow using Basho and WYWYN.
You decide and practise
Why this customer, this person and now. Relevance before volume.
Practical outcome
Three outreach messages assessed for evidence and relevance.
- 04
Find the real need and reason to act
You build
Insight research, alternative hypotheses and conversation rehearsal.
You decide and practise
Which assumptions to test with the customer and what inaction may cost.
Practical outcome
A discovery role-play and an evidence-backed point of view.
- 05
Turn data into customer value
You build
Analysis, scenario and business-case templates.
You decide and practise
What the figures support, which offer creates value and which concessions earn commitments. Negotiation includes Ackerman.
Practical outcome
A useful insight, a quantified offer with explicit assumptions and a negotiation plan.
- 06
Close with a shared plan
You build
A Joint Execution Plan that you maintain as the deal develops.
You decide and practise
Business priorities, cost of delay, real deadlines, owners and commitments.
Practical outcome
A JEP tested in a buyer role-play.
Assessment covers both the work and the reasoning: trace a source, correct an AI error, respond to an objection and revise the work when a new fact appears.
A classroom role-play
“We need more training.” What would you ask next?
Fictional case: a manager asks for more training for new recruits. Learners practise the conversation as a project lead or account manager with the person making the request, then explain their decisions. In the sales pathway, the same fictional organisation carries through the knowledge base, business case and shared plan.
01 · Find the why
Get to the business outcome
“What should the training change?” The director wants new salespeople to create their first qualified opportunity sooner. Together, you agree what makes an opportunity qualified and how to measure the time taken.
02 · Earn the challenge
Bring a comparison worth discussing
The case data shows 12 weeks to the first qualified opportunity in one team and 8 in another doing the same role. Check differences in experience, coaching and the qualification criteria. “Before adding courses, could we investigate what helps the faster team?”
03 · Agree the next step
Test the idea together
Agree a pilot with the director: investigate the gap, choose one change to test, name an owner and set a review date. Judge the result against the agreed business outcome.
Learners leave with discovery questions, an evidence-backed point of view and a joint action plan. The figures are fictional: the comparison opens an investigation; it does not prove that training caused the gap.
Teaching formats
A format for your programme.
Start with a focused three-hour workshop, or build a longer contribution around your cohort and curriculum.
Introductory workshop
Three hours
Build a small evidence base. Prepare a useful conversation.
A focused first session: organise a small set of sources, form a hypothesis and test a question or recommendation in a role-play.
Course
12 to 18 hours
Evidence, influence and applied AI
A modular course adapted to management, projects or strategic sales. The commercial specialism follows the six-stage sequence; we agree the appropriate depth for the cohort.
Workshop
One day
Your knowledge base and first AI workflow
A small source collection, a checked preparation brief and reusable instructions for one work situation.
Talk and discussion
Two hours
The Dawn of the Architects
A practitioner perspective on AI, work and employability, linked to a project that demonstrates a chosen skill.
Exercises use public or fictional information. Course scope is agreed with the school; a short workshop focuses on selected skills. Learners explain their sources and decisions, test their tools and improve their work.
The practitioner behind the teaching
Quentin Lemarié
Account Director at Coursera until November 2026
Founder of qelia
14 years in Amsterdam and London.
Teaching in English and French.
Account Director at Coursera until November 2026 and founder of qelia, I bring 17 years of enterprise sales experience, including Gartner and customer work with Capgemini through Coursera. I spent fourteen years in Amsterdam and London before returning to Paris.
Sharing methods has long been part of my work. At Coursera, I created and delivered peer training on complex sales, account growth, growth mindset in 2024 and the skills-based organisation approach, including SBO enablement in 2025. I also developed a Joint Execution Plan from my mutual close plan and coached eight account executives as acting manager.
From presentations to audiences of hundreds to hands-on workshops for around twelve people, I adapt the format: clear explanations for a large room, discussion and practice in a small group.
Forgia · From method to automation
A graduate of Euridis and founder of qelia, I build the tools I use. Forgia connects account research, preparation and follow-through; learners can begin with a simple knowledge base and one repeatable task.
Watch me in conversation
Ideas explained, questioned and discussed.
Public recordings offer a sense of my speaking style and the subjects I work on.
B SMART · SMART JOB · 2 April 2026
Critical thinking in the age of generative AI
A discussion of critical thinking and AI, with Quentin Lemarié.
Watch the segmentWebikeo · 25 June 2020
The future of learning in a post-Covid economy
A panel discussion about learning and work. 45-minute replay; access may require registration.
View the replaySearch the teaching portfolio
Explore the evidence and course ideas
A searchable guide to 166 reviewed records and 43 bilingual answers. It displays sourced excerpts and does not generate answers. Career facts, working principles and proposed teaching are labeled separately.
Use public or fictional examples. Please do not include confidential or personal information. Answers are bilingual; record excerpts are in English.
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Some sources were reviewed privately. The public catalogue cites them without publishing private files. Source catalogue
Let’s discuss your teaching needs.
Tell me about your students, the situations they need to handle and the time available. We can start with a focused three-hour workshop. Paris area or remote, in English or French. Availability from January 2027, subject to the programme and calendar.
Email Quentinquentin@qelia.ai