Pierre Grenier, with his 30 years of experience in business development and valorization of innovations, puts his expertise to work for the Cirris by overseeing the Bureau of Partnerships and Innovation (BPI). Over the course of his career, Pierre introduced a number of industrial, clinical and research lab equipment and facilitated the introduction of several innovations in manufacturing and optical traceability. His commercial success and high-end technical knowledge have enabled him to quickly be promoted as one of the 10 senior representatives of the Canadian division of a multinational company with hundreds of employees. He also worked for 15 years in the optic-photonic sector in the province of Quebec, a rapidly growing niche market. During his different mandates, he was in charge of a program aiming to adopt optic-photonic technologies in the food industry. Among the many initiatives set up to help companies, there is the implementation of the prestigious Cercle de l’industrie optique photonique (créneau ACCORD optique-photonique) and the creation of several industrial consortiums aiming at co-developing products for application markets in optics-photonics, generating over 10 million in direct income over the course of his last mandate. He also wrote the business plan to create the Pôle d’excellence en optique-photonique du Québec – Optonique.

After taking numerous classes in sales, customer service and strategic management of client accounts in marketing, Pierre specialized in hyper-focused strategic market analysis. He now offers his knowledge to the Cirris researchers, businesses and community organizations that are involved in research in rehabilitation and social integration, thus helping to establish research partnerships that meet true market needs. To do so, he designs business plans and valorization strategies to accelerate the introduction of new technologies as well as knowledge transfer in the areas of rehabilitation and social integration. Pierre is a product line manager that has been certified by the Pragmatic Institute of which he uses their method of “market-driven product management.”