During his 13 years at Luxinnovation, Arnaud Duban has had a wide range of responsibilities that have given him an excellent insight into the issues Luxembourg SMEs face and made him able to better understand the challenges they face.
Professionally active in Luxembourg since 1997, ever since obtaining his engineering degree in Nancy, Arnaud was first a quality engineer at Rotarex, then process engineer at Guardian before joining an industrial start-up as business developer. This led to his first contacts with Luxinnovation in the context of the 123 Go business plan competition.
He joined the agency in 2006 as coordinator of the Innovation Relay Centres network, which since then has become the Enterprise Europe Network (EEN). He was also in charge of the SurfMat cluster (now the Materials & Manufacturing Cluster) and of monitoring various Interreg and ERDF projects, before joining the SME department where he worked developing the service offer and strengthening the support for SMEs. He now holds the position of Head of SME Performance.
“I also contributed directly to setting up the ‘Fit 4’ performance programmes,” he adds. “So I can say that I master quite well all topics related to innovation in SMEs, whether at the national or the European level.”
Over the years, Luxinnovation’s reputation has grown in the SME community as the various programmes have developed and proven their value. “By acting as a point of reference in innovation for companies, we have intensified our relationship with them and strengthened our position as a neutral third party and trusted partner, a role that goes far beyond the specific content of each programme.”
In just over a decade, Arnaud was able to appreciate the diversity and richness of a structure that he has seen quadruple over the same period of time. “Being able to change sectors and roles is one of the reasons why I have stayed here. Today, it is the richness of the content, the development of the activities and the new opportunities that constantly emerge which make the function exciting.”
This article was originally published in Luxinnovation’s Annual Report 2018.