Jean-François Bouchard  Jean-François Bouchard (born 1968) is chairman of Sid Lee, the creative services agency he co-founded with Philippe Meunier in 1993. He is also founder of C2 , a global platform and series of events exploring the intersection between creativity and commerce. He is also a visual artist whose contemporary photographic work has been exhibited in Montreal, New York, Toronto, Miami and Paris. Jean-François Bouchard was born in Montréal in 1968. He went to boarding school at Collège Notre-Dame and studied law at the University of Ottawa. Before co-founding Sid Lee in 1993, he worked as an articling lawyer at Lavery and at the Ministère du Revenu du Québec. Bouchard is also a visual artist and photographer and has exhibited in Montreal, Paris, Miami, and Toronto. Bouchard co-founded creative company Sid Lee in 1993 with art director Philippe Meunier, whom he met at 16 when they launched a short-lived student newspaper which featured Jane Fonda in its first edition. Some of Sid Lee’s first clients were the Greek restaurant near their office, a plumber, and Bouchard’s dentist. Diesel was renamed as Sid Lee (an anagram of “diesel”) in 2006 to avoid confusion with the popular Italian jeans brand, Diesel. Sid Lee went on to collaborate internationally with brands such as Cirque du Soleil, adidas, The North Face, Absolut Vodka, Videotron, Ubisoft, and many others. Bouchard was CEO of Sid Lee from 1993 to early 2017, when Bertrand Cesvet took helm of the company after playing a central role in its development since 1997 as the third member of the partnership. The ownership of the company eventually expanded to include more than 30 partners. In 2012, Cirque du Soleil, a long-time partner and client, acquired a significant minority stake in the company. In 2006, Bouchard was listed among Canada's Top 40 Under 40 and was also named Young Entrepreneur of the Year by the "" (Young Chamber of Commerce). In 2011, Bouchard was selected along with his partners as the Personality of the Week by La Presse. Bouchard is also the founder and chairman of C2 Montréal, a global innovation conference on commerce and creativity launched with the support of Cirque du Soleil and Stephen and Claudia Bronfman.