Alison Sunstrum

Founder & CEO, CNSRV-X Inc.

Alison Sunstrum is CEO of CNSRV-X, Managing Partner of NYA Ventures, and serves as a Director of several emerging tech companies and not for profit Boards. She is recognized for building commercialization systems that connect innovation, capital, infrastructure, and industry to create globally competitive companies and resilient industrial ecosystems.

Her work spans venture capital, commercialization strategy, industrial biomanufacturing, corporate governance, and national innovation policy. Through Nya Ventures, she invests in companies transforming agriculture, food, and industrial biotechnology. Through CNSRV-X, she advises organizations on commercialization strategy, venture development, and ecosystem design. As a Director of the Neptune BioInnovation Centre, she is helping establish Canada’s next generation of shared biomanufacturing infrastructure to accelerate precision fermentation and industrial biotechnology commercialization.

Alison works extensively with founders, institutional investors, governments, corporations, universities, and research organizations to strengthen Canada’s commercialization capacity. Her focus is on translating research into scalable businesses by aligning capital, infrastructure, governance, and strategic partnerships.

She is a Fellow and Founding Partner of Creative Destruction Lab’s AgriFood Stream and serves as a mentor across multiple CDL programs. She advises NRC-IRAP, Ivey Business School, the Sustainable Business Value Institute, the Arrell Food Institute, and founders participating in the Weston Family Foundation’s Homegrown Innovation Challenge. She regularly contributes to national discussions on innovation policy, food security, venture capital, industrial strategy, and economic competitiveness.

Alison holds multiple patents and is a frequent keynote speaker on commercialization, venture investing, food systems, industrial biotechnology, artificial intelligence in agriculture, and building Canada’s bioeconomy. Her work is guided by the belief that food systems, agriculture, and biomanufacturing are strategic infrastructure, and that Canada’s long-term competitiveness depends on building commercialization systems that enable innovation to scale into globally competitive industries.