Denis Gauvreau

Denis GAUVREAU is a technology entrepreneur and innovation specialist with over 25 years of achievements as well as field experience in Canada, France, the UK and Saudi Arabia. He has acted in turn as Founder, President-CEO, Executive Chairman, Chairman, Board Director, Counsel, or Seed Investor in over 20 early-stage companies in Canada and in France.

Denis is currently Director of Innovation and Business Development at Polytechnique Montréal. From 2014 to early 2019, Denis was Director of International Affairs at the French biocluster Genopole, following his tenure at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST, Saudi Arabia) from 2009-2013 as one of its 300 Founding staff members. At KAUST, Denis participated directly in the establishment of its Research Park and Innovation Cluster, where he closed the contractual agreements with the three first industrial (anchor) tenants in KAUST’s Research Park, that led to the creation of the Dow Middle East and Africa R&D Center at KAUST, the SABIC Corporate Research and Innovation Center at KAUST, and the Saudi Aramco R&D Center at KAUST.

In his early career as a research scientist at the University of Quebec (Institut national de la recherche scientifique) and at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Montreal (1981-1995), Denis’ activities pertained to the establishment of a large multidisciplinary (and inter-institutional) research program on the causes of Alzheimer Disease (Project IMAGE).

Denis obtained his Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of Cambridge (UK)(1981), after having completed his B.Sc. (1973) as well as his M.Sc. (1975) in Biochemistry at the University of Montreal.