Valérie Bonnardel-Vacqué

Dr. Valérie Bonnardel-Vacqué holds a master’s degree in engineering from the École centrale de Marseille and a Ph.D. in chemistry from the Université de Lille. She has devoted her career to building ties between academia and industry in a wide variety of areas, from fundamental and applied research to technological innovation and its economic, environmental and societal impacts. She is currently Senior Director of Business Development — Science and Engineering at Axelys, a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to accelerate the development, commercialization and transfer of high-potential innovations stemming from public research, thus contributing to the economic and social prosperity of Quebec. She is responsible for the development and sound management of the organization’s external business relationships, in particular with industry partners interested in intellectual property assets supported by AXELYS; this work encourages technology transfers and the creation of spinoff firms from Quebec universities, colleges and hospitals. She also maintains relationships with numerous public- and private-sector partners that help Axelys to achieve its overall mission.

In her earlier career, Dr. Bonnardel-Vacqué worked for 15 years in the research departments of large private companies (AkzoNobel and L’Oréal) and then for nearly 10 years on developing collaborative academic research—first as executive director of the Grenoble INP Partnership Foundation in France, and then with Mitacs in Canada. She also served as Director of the Innovation Support Office in the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research at the Université de Moncton. In this capacity, she developed collaborative research strategies based on best practices for public-private partnerships and implemented these practices with the faculty’s researchers.

An expert in managing complex situations and change, Dr. Bonnardel-Vacqué is dedicated to improving performance, creating innovative social networks and developing teams and individuals through her teaching, seminars and conferences. She also applies her international, multidisciplinary expertise as a consultant on social enterprise incubation and sustainable development.

Dr. Bonnardel-Vacqué is active as a volunteer with several organizations dedicated to entrepreneurship (Startup Greater Moncton, in New Brunswick, Canada, and Sevea Consulting, in Cambodia), environmental research (the CHORUS research institute, which works to protect marine ecosystems and promote the sustainable development of human activities at sea), and integrating adults with autism spectrum disorder into the job market (the Leonard Algernon Association, of which she is a co-founder).