Paule De Blois has been appointed president and CEO of Gestion SOVAR Inc, the value-add and commercialization arm of several academic and research institutions including Laval Univ and Univ of Quebec at Chicoutami. She replaces Pierre Pedneau, who is retiring after leading SOVAR since its inception in 2000. De Blois has 25 years of business experience with large and small enterprises including VP operations at DiagnoCure and COO at B-Temia which develops, manufactures and commercializes products for the human augmentation systems market. De Blois holds a BA in political science from Concordia Univ, a certificate of marketing from the Univ of Quebec at Montreal and an MBA from McGill Univ. SOVAR was one of several valorisation entities initially funded under the province’s $220-million Valorisation-Recherche Québec initiative.