Claude-Alain Despland, Head of Materials and Detection Research & Innovation at SICPA, holds an MSc in Chemical Engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Lausanne/CH (EPFL), and an Executive MBA from Stanford University in California/USA.

Claude-Alain is a Swiss citizen, born in 1971. He joined SICPA’s R&D department in 1995 as an R&D chemist, then occupied different roles within this entity, and in 2021 he was appointed to his current position. In his role, he is in charge of the following research groups on security: Features & Detection, Security Inks, Technical Customer Support, Features Integration and In-Product Marking.

In his different roles Claude-Alain has been a leading contributor to the development and commercial success of many security features and solutions. He is inventor or co-inventor in more than 60 different patent families.