Dr. Lafond has more than 45 years of experience in food research and development.  He is Chief Technology Officer for Healthy Ingredient Solutions, LLC, which is focused on launching new and novel healthy ingredient products, technologies, and business development services for clients in North America and Europe.  He is experienced in finding technologies or companies that can bring about new innovation opportunities or accelerate existing innovation programs by finding the missing technology or business solution.  This includes establishing and managing external development of that solution as well as licensing-in technologies, partnerships, and joint development ventures.

He has also founded and is CEO and Chief Visionary Officer of Celesta Company LLC, on a mission to improve sleep, relaxation, and the ways we think about both.  Together with his team of experts, he has developed clinically tested ingredients blended to help reduce stress during the day and get better quality sleep at night.  Prior to this Dave developed and led a technology scouting program for Kellogg Company where he was responsible for finding new technologies, validating those technologies from a technical and business standpoint, and recommending which to bring into Kellogg to support their 3-5 year innovation pipeline.

Previously, he managed product development in several business units around the world within the Kellogg Company and enhanced growth through many new global product launches.  Prior to his 22 year career at Kellogg Company, he spent 18 years in the product development/R&D area working for Kraft, Quaker Oats and Keebler companies. He has earned a BS in Biochemistry from Iowa State University, an MS in Food Science and Nutrition from the University of Illinois, an MBA from Lake Forest Graduate School, and a PhD in Food Science from Michigan State University where he studied physical properties of fiber and related them in clinical work to hormonal signaling for appetite control.