Almost eight months after losing its director to move to General Motors (GM), Investissement Québec (IQ) has just appointed its new director for the battery sector, noted Sarah Larose, a former member of Element AI The newspaper.
Last month, Sarah Larose, who was previously head of business development for New England and Canada at IQ, was named head of the battery sector, where the Legault government has invested billions of dollars in public money.
This comes just months after former industry No. 1 Simon Thibault left IQ to work at GM. The Journal subsequently reported that he had already been active as a lobbyist to obtain public funds from his former employer on behalf of General Motors (GM).
Sarah Larose, new director of the battery sector
Element AI
Prior to her three-year stint in the investment division, Sarah Larose worked in government relations and account management at Element AI.
“In my first six months, I received $5 million in funding from the federal government to purchase GPUs for our AI data center,” she states on her LinkedIn profile.
In 2019, Quebec invested $25 million in Element AI, a young company whose co-founders and shareholders included world-renowned Quebec artificial intelligence expert Yoshua Bengio.
A year later, the sale to the American ServiceNow shocked the industry. However, according to the Ministry of Economy, Innovation and Energy (MEIE), the government was able to recover the value of its investments.
Today, the American company Element AI, now ServiceNow, is trying to sell its services to the Quebec government, according to the register of lobbyists.
Setting mode
IQ’s new battery sector director, Sarah Larose, has just taken office and is tasked with finding a senior project manager for foreign direct investment.
The person’s role will be to “work with international marketers and project managers from the three geographical divisions to target, attract and persuade foreign companies in the battery sector.”
The Journal was unable to speak with Sarah Larose in recent days.
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