RDV Forum 2025
Program

Maud Cohen

Chief Executive Officer

An accomplished manager who is highly valued and respected by her teams and stakeholders, Ms. Cohen brings strategic leadership with accents on innovation, agility, individual development and continuous improvement.
Ms. Cohen holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering from Polytechnique Montréal (1996), an MBA from HEC Montréal (2004) and a designation as a certified corporate administrator from the Collège des administrateurs de sociétés of Université Laval (2012). She has a brilliant track record in ethics and the sound management of organizations with key missions in our society.
From 2014 to 2022, Ms. Cohen was President and CEO of the Fondation CHU Sainte-Justine. In this role, she oversaw the continued growth of the Foundation, enabling it to engage the community and support the Sainte-Justine university hospital in its pursuit of excellence and its commitment to providing children and mothers with one of the highest levels of health care in the world, now and in the future. Prior to this, from 2009 to 2012, she served three consecutive terms as President of the Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec, making her the third woman to hold this position since the organization was founded in 1920.
Her career also spans the globe. She led major projects in Europe and the United States as a project manager for Walsh Automation Inc. and Walsh Europe Limited. She was also a Director at CGI Group from 2008 to 2011, as well as for Invensys Systems Canada from 2001 to 2007.
At the same time, she has sat on various boards of directors for the past several years. Loto-Québec, Gestion FÉRIQUE and Aéroports de Montréal are among the organizations that have benefited from her expertise. Between 2021 and 2022, she put her experience in scientific governance to use as Chair of the committee of independent experts on the architectural and urban integration of the REM de l’Est.
In 2010 and 2018, Ms. Cohen was named one of Entreprendre magazine’s “100 Women Leaders of the Future.” In 2012, she was named a Fellow of Engineers Canada (FEC) for her commitment to the engineering profession. Also, in 2011, she received the jury’s special award in the category of executive, manager or professional in private enterprise from the Réseau des femmes d'affaires du Québec.

Marie-Pierre Habas-Gerard

Chief Executive Officer

Currently Chief Executive Officer of the industrial consortium Confiance IA, Marie-Pierre Habas-Gerard comes from R&D in Quantum Physical Chemistry as a Ph. D and post-doctoral student at several european universities. She added to her academic DNA, 25 years in the private sector in roles as director of digital transformation programs, AI Practices leader and as an entrepreneur and Associate in a Montreal startup in 2018. 

Her approach to AI is pragmatic: AI must be applied to the business challenges of industries and must be a vector of growth for our Quebec and Canadian SMEs. Ethical and trustworthiness issues are intrinsically linked to the AI implementation and its adoption. The need to go beyond R&D in AI, to favor a faster and innovation-oriented approach applied to business performance challenges, to bring together a diverse and multidisciplinary set of industries around common use cases, is obvious to her. Able to challenge the status quo and unite around her vision, she works with industries to propel the creation of pre-competitive tools and to develop methods to qualify and quantify trustworthy AI.
Son approche de l'IA est pragmatique et engagée : l'IA doit être appliquée aux défis d'affaire des industries et doit être un vecteur de croissance pour nos PME québécoises et canadiennes. Les enjeux éthiques et de confiance sont intrinsèquement liés à l'implantation de l'IA et à son adoption. La nécessité d’aller au-delà de la R&D en IA, de privilégier le cycle de l’innovation plus rapide et plus appliqué aux défis de performance des entreprises, de rassembler un ensemble diversifié et pluridisciplinaire d’industriels autour de cas d’usage partagés est une évidence pour elle. Capable de challenger le statu quo et de fédérer autour de sa vision, elle travaille avec les industriels de Confiance IA, à propulser la création d’outils pré-compétitifs et à élaborer des méthodes permettant de qualifier et quantifier l’IA de confiance.