Zwipe Announces New Strategy and Product Officer

A former IDEMIA executive is now Zwipe‘s Chief Strategy and Product Officer.

Patrice Meilland spent seven years at IDEMIA, overseeing the company’s card technology business and its biometric cards roadmap. His career also includes terms with ST-Ericsson and ST-NXP Wireless, while his longest tenure was with STMicroelectronics, where he started in a junior position in 1989 and eventually became the firm’s Wireless Group Vice President in 2007-2008. (He briefly returned to STMicroelectronics to serve in a senior executive role from August of 2013 to February of 2015.)

At Zwipe, Meilland’s role will be focused on strategy, partnerships, and the firm’s product roadmap, with the entire product management team now under his leadership.

“As Zwipe’s Chief Strategy and Product Officer, Patrice will help defining our strategy and driving our future growth with our strategic partners and the product team, enabling Zwipe to remain one of the most competitive and dynamic companies in the industry,” explained Zwipe CEO André Løvestam.

The chief executive called Meilland “a transformative leader with a global perspective and deep industry insights gathered over more than 30 years in the industry,” adding that he “is highly respected, knowledgeable and connected.”

On that note, Meilland’s connections with his previous employer may prove helpful as Zwipe continues to work toward commercialization of its own biometric card platform. At the corporate level, IDEMIA and Zwipe are on very friendly terms, having established a partnership to develop a low-cost biometric payment card in 2019. The companies followed through with their first samples of a chip for biometric payment cards in early 2020, and brought in IDEX Biometrics to supply fingerprint sensor technology.

“I am honored to join Zwipe and am looking forward to helping grow the company and its business, as well as working with the industry and ecosystem to foster adoption of biometric cards across various segments,” commented Meilland.

The announcement of Meilland’s appointment comes shortly after Zwipe received a formal Letter of Approval for its Zwipe Pay platform from Visa last month.

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April 1, 2022 – by Alex Perala