Private Roundtable: Future Ecosystems for Batteries and Mobility

Interested Autotech Council members working in battery, EV, and AV technology can request to join this VIP discussion with Pierre Fitzgibbon, Québec Minister of Economy and Innovation, and Hubert Bolduc, President, Invest Québec International. The roundtable will center on battery development, the battery mineral supply chain, low-emissions and emissions-free EV battery manufacturing, and growing the Artificial Intelligence expertise inside the local mobility ecosystem which already includes 650 OEMs and suppliers.

The two leaders will be in Silicon Valley to discuss the Canadian province's decades-long leadership in transportation electrification and policy initiatives that put Québec at the forefront of the North American EV market. In recent years Québec has emerged as a top catalyst for new mobility technologies, including bold new partnership initiatives to leverage Québec's remarkable intersection of assets — vast mineral resources, massive renewable hydropower, exceptional road, rail and shipping infrastructure — that are already attracting major new projects to lead North America's clean battery manufacturing revolution.

• Québec's ambitious new $1.4 billion initiative for battery development is part of a broader coalition actively working to secure North America's battery mineral supply chain. Québec is moving fast to capitalize on its leadership as Canada's top-ranked province for mineral production and its unique position as North America's #1 provider of hydropower to rapidly shift to large-scale, emissions-free battery cell manufacturing.
• As home to nearly half of Canada's EV market , Québec's EV adoption rate surged 71% in 2019, twice that of California's. Québec's advanced mobility ecosystem is comprised of over 650 OEMs and suppliers and taps into one of the world's first and most dynamic talent hubs for artificial intelligence, as well as first-in-class resources for optics and computer vision technologies and cross-over aerospace innovations. In the past five years Québec has attracted important new international investments and partnerships with multinationals like DENSO, Google, Microsoft and Nuance's automotive spin-off, Cerence.

Pierre Fitzgibbon
Québec Minister of Economy and Innovation
A native Montréaler, Pierre Fitzgibbon is a graduate of top-ranked Canadian business school HEC Montréal and is a Quebec Chartered Professional Accountant. Prior to his 2018 election to Québec's National Assembly and appointment as Québec Minister of Economy and Innovation, Minister Fitzgibbon held executive positions in finance and business development at Télésystème Mobiles International, Chase Capital Partners and Domtar. From 2002 to 2007 he served as vice-chairman of National Bank Financial, responsible for investment banking and corporate finance services. He next became President and CEO of Atrium Innnovations, shepherding the natural health company through a period of strong growth, before serving as managing partner at Walter Capital Partners, a private Equity Firm, between 2015 and 2018. In recent years he has served on multiple boards of directors, including Québec pension fund giant CDPQ, one of the largest institutional investors in the world, WSP Global, Héroux-Devtek, TC Transcontinental and Cycle Capital Management.



Hubert Bolduc
President, Invest Québec International
Hubert Bolduc has served as President of Invest Québec International, the Québec government’s foreign investment partnership and export promotion agency, since 2019. Prior to his appointment, Mr. Bolduc served as advisor to the Québec Premier from 2001 to 2003, as Vice President of Communications and Public Affairs of Canadian paper and packaging giant Cascades from 2004 to 2012 and as President and CEO of Montréal International, the investment promotion agency for Canada's second largest city. Mr. Bolduc holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Université du Québec à Montréal, a master’s degree in communication from the University of Stirling in Scotland, and an MBA from HEC Montréal. He is a member of the boards of directors of the Palais des congrès exhibition center in Montréal, Beneva, Scale AI and Montréal International.