Take Over, Innovate, Pass It On: Shaping the Future of Entrepreneurship in Quebec
Quebec is at a turning point: in the coming years, thousands of businesses will need to be transferred. This is a challenge—but more importantly, a unique opportunity. Today, being an entrepreneur also means taking over, transforming, and evolving existing businesses.
Business succession is emerging as a powerful lever to accelerate entrepreneurial impact while ensuring the continuity of our local economic fabric. It’s also a concrete way to meet the growing need for succession and vitality across Quebec’s regions.
Whether it’s business creation, succession, intrapreneurship, or mentorship—there are many paths. This Forum aims to highlight them all, in a dynamic, action-oriented format. Stories, tools, guidance: leave inspired and equipped to do business differently.
Talks and Testimonials
Real-life journeys to inspire the next generation
Attend panels and discussions with business successors, entrepreneurs, and experts sharing their hands-on experience. Learn from the successes and challenges of those who have dared to take over or pass on a business.
Support and Tools
Mastering the foundations of a successful takeover
Get advice from experienced professionals and walk away with practical insights to structure your project.
Targeted Networking
Connect with the right people at the right time
Take advantage of dedicated moments to meet successors, business owners, mentors, financial institutions, and experts. The Forum opens the door to a supportive and engaged ecosystem.
Back in 2014, the Chamber highlighted business transfer as a major upcoming economic challenge. Over a decade later, that prediction rings truer than ever.
Despite initiatives in place to encourage these transfers, a lack of entrepreneurs willing to take businesses over could lead to a number of business closures, resulting in a significant loss of jobs, knowledge and expertise.
Despite improvements and a more structured support ecosystem, the lack of well-prepared successors still risks causing significant losses: of businesses, jobs, expertise, and collective wealth.
But things are changing. Business succession now plays a growing role in entrepreneurial projects, attracting a new generation ready to take the reins—provided they can access the right tools, financing, strategic guidance, and support networks.
The 2025 Forum embraces this momentum. It’s about turning a challenge into a lever, and creating space for action, connection, and entrepreneurial boldness in all its forms.
Why This Forum Matters?
This Forum is a unique opportunity to bring together key players in entrepreneurship and business succession in Quebec—entrepreneurs, successors, business owners, experts, institutions, and support organizations. Together, we’ll explore how to:
- Ensure the continuity of Quebec businesses through successful transfers and a strong pipeline of new talent.
- Equip entrepreneurs with the right tools to succeed in launching or taking over a business.
- Showcase meaningful entrepreneurial journeys, with their challenges, insights, and lessons learned.
- Rally the ecosystem to support succession and foster sustainable, innovative growth.
This Forum Is for You
Whether you are:
- An entrepreneur, successor, business owner, or project leader ready to launch, acquire, transfer, or transform a business.
- An expert, advisor, or representative of a support organization or financial institution.
- An investor interested in high-potential entrepreneurial projects.
- A changemaker, policymaker, or professional concerned with Quebec’s economic future.
Your voice matters. Come share your ideas, grow your network, explore concrete tools, and help shape the next generation of entrepreneurs in Quebec.
🗓️ Program Overview
A half-day of practical and inspiring content, structured around four main segments, followed by a cocktail, presented by Quebecor, to continue the conversation.
1:00 p.m. – Welcome and networking
1:30 p.m. – Start of conferences
BLOCK 1
BLOCK
1
Building a fertile ground for entrepreneurship
A look at Quebec’s entrepreneurial culture, risk-taking, and the new faces of entrepreneurship.
1:50 p.m. FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION: SECURING THE FUTURE OF OUR FAMILY BUSINESSES
Preparing today those who will carry your businesses forward tomorrow.
2:00 p.m. Take over to transform: shared testimonials
Inspiring stories from women successors who will share their journeys and vision, showing how business succession paves the way for ambitions as diverse as they are bold.
-
Pénélope Fournier
Partner, President, Montreal
LG2
-
Catryn Pinard
President and CEO
Nationex
BLOCK 2
BLOCK
2
Taking over a business: a collective journey
A deep dive into what a successful transfer really involves: tools, support, expert advice, and real-life stories.
2:30 p.m. Securing the next generation: winning strategies for successors
A discussion on the key role of Repreneuriat Quebec in supporting business successors. Through challenges, incentives, and winning strategies, discover how to support the next generation and ensure business continuity.
2:50 p.m. Financing Business succession: a custom project to plan
Business succession: a custom project to plan Business succession is never a one-size-fits-all journey. This panel highlights strategies, tools, and approaches tailored to each successor, while exploring the behind-the-scenes of the transaction and the potential they offer to successors.
3:15 p.m. Family Business Transfer: The Torch Doesn’t Pass Itself
Taking over the family business is a privilege… but it doesn’t just fall into your lap.
TDominic Gagnon from Les Dérangeants joins the Fonds de solidarité FTQ panel for an open and candid discussion. Plan early, build clear structures, and surround yourself with the right allies: the keys to success for those thinking about passing – or taking up – the torch.
3:30 p.m. – Networking break
BLOCK 3
BLOCK
3
The audacity to build, your way
When entrepreneurship becomes a tailor-made project: charting your own course, challenging conventions, and creating differently. An inspiring look at the boldness required to be an entrepreneur in your own image.
4:05 p.m. BOLDNESS IN ACTION: THE INSPIRING JOURNEY OF WORKLEAP
Dive into the inspiring journey of a leading Quebec entrepreneur and discover how boldness propelled his company from a local start-up to a global player. A conversation about human-centered leadership, innovation, and building a sustainable organization that attracts and nurtures top talent.
BLOCK 4
BLOCK
4
4:25 p.m. The Summit, presented by asterX Quebecor
To mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of Pierre Péladeau, one of Quebec’s great builders, Quebecor invites you to its annual entrepreneurship gathering. Continue the conversation in an atmosphere where boldness, creativity, and the innovation of the next generation take center stage, with the presentation of the 27th edition of the Pierre Péladeau Bursaries—the largest university entrepreneurship competition in Quebec.
Five up-and-coming start-ups will be crowned winners among more than a hundred applications from all backgrounds and from universities across Quebec. From health to robotics, and from green technologies to sustainable development, the changemakers behind these innovative projects embody the boldness to think big.
Discover Quebecor’s 100 LIMITE ranking, showcasing the 15 finalists still in the running this year.
BLOCK 5
BLOCK
5
5:05 p.m. Cocktail - Presented by Quebecor
Wrap up the day with this networking event celebrating the next generation of entrepreneurs.