Biography
Valérie Pisano is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Mila. A prominent leader in Canada’s artificial intelligence landscape, she is recognized for her strategic vision and transformational leadership. With over 20 years of experience in growth management, she notably served as Chief Talent Officer at Cirque du Soleil and co-founded the Mobïus project on bias to accelerate the dialogue on women leadership in the corporate world.
Since 2018, she has led Mila, one of the world’s leading artificial intelligence research institutes, founded by Professor Yoshua Bengio, recipient of the prestigious AM Turing Award. Under her leadership, the Institute has experienced exponential growth, establishing itself as a pillar of the Canadian AI ecosystem with a reach that extends far beyond national borders. Today, Mila boasts a community of close to 2,000 researchers and professionals and more than 150 industrial partners, and stands as a global benchmark for AI governance, notably through key collaborations with the OECD and the United Nations.
As a former consultant with McKinsey Canada, she focuses on human-centric adoption and the leadership challenges of this technological revolution. She holds a degree in Finance and Economics from HEC Montréal and currently serves on the boards of directors of LawZero, Chartwell, and Énergir.