Meet the NASF 2023 speakers:

North Atlantic Seafood Forum
Bergen – Norway, March 7th to 9th 2023
(More speakers to be added)

Minister of Fisheries and Ocean Policy Bjørnar Selnes Skjæran is responsible for the policy on shipping, waterways, maritime and marine research and innovation, coastal and port development, fisheries, seafood and aquaculture. Skjæran is the deputy leader of the Norwegian Labor Party.

Opening of plenary session

Einar Gustafsson is the incoming Chief Executive Officer of American Seafoods. A longtime seafood and fresh foods leader with extensive experience developing and growing worldwide seafood organizations, Einar will return to his roots at American Seafoods in 2022 after previously working at American Pride Seafoods nearly two decades ago.

Keynote Speaker: Wild Alaska Pollock: 25 years of sustainable fishing and a look ahead to the next 25

Carlos Díaz is the CEO of BioMar Group, a Danish global feed company that produces aquaculture feeds for 45 different fish and shrimp species for more than 90 countries. Carlos is an educated Veterinarian who started his career in fish farming before venturing into feed. He has worked for BioMar for over 20 years in various fields from technical, nutrition, operations, research, to sales and marketing. Carlos led the transformational change of BioMar to be the leader in sustainable aquaculture feeds through breakthrough innovation including the adoption of circular and restorative raw ingredients. BioMar continues this innovation journey and is again set to revolutionise the sector with the next generation of sustainable aquafeeds.

Keynote Speaker: Actual and future trends in Aquaculture feeds:” Better feed, better food”

Since joining Rabobank International in 2005, Gorjan Nikolik (44) has been an industry analyst focusing on the global seafood sector including aquaculture, wild-catch, seafood trade and processing. In his primary role, he works as a senior sector expert to Rabobank departments such as Mergers and Acquisitions, Leveraged Finance, Venture Capital, Credit Risk Management and the Relationship Bankers.

He is a regular speaker on global seafood and aquaculture conferences and has published research reports covering the seafood industry. He also has experience as a commodity analyst having covered the sugar industry.

Gorjan holds a masters degree in Finance and Business Administration from the University of Maastricht and an MBA from Maastricht School of Management.

Keynote Speaker: Winners and losers in the global seafood trade roller-coaster

Thiraphong steers Thai Union’s global business and growth strategies. He has extensive experience in business management, most notably in the area of mergers and acquisitions. Since 1995, Thiraphong has managed the expansion of the company’s global brand portfolio, which includes markets-leading international brands Chicken of the Sea (U.S.), John West (U.K.), Petit Navire (France), Parmentier (France), Mareblu (Italy), King Oscar (Norway) and Rügen Fisch (Germany), and leading Thai brands Sealect, Fisho and Bellotta.

In March 2016, Thiraphong wasawarded ‘No. 1 Best CEO in Thailand’ in an annual Asia’s Best Managed Companies Poll by FinanceAsia. Thiraphong was also awarded the Best CEO under the Agro & Food Industry category for the 7th consecutive year by the annual Investment Analysis Association (IAA) 2015/2016 poll.

Thiraphong joined Thai Union Group in 1988. Prior to his appointment as President and CEO, he held several executive positions within the Group. Thiraphong received an MBA from the University Of San Francisco, California and a Bachelor’s degree in Marketing from Assumption University, Bangkok. His interests include marathon running, reading, and collecting works of art.

Helene Ziv-Douki is President and Group Leader for Cargill’s global Aqua Nutrition business within the Animal Nutrition & Health Enterprise (ANH). With 2,000 employees in more than 19 countries and 40 plants, Cargill Aqua Nutrition is one of the largest suppliers of aqua feed in the world. Helene is a proven leader with a track record for building, growing and transforming businesses while delivering for customers and her team.

She has a passion for customer-driven sustainability and is proud Cargill Aqua Nutrition is making a positive impact for the planet together with customers and suppliers. Helene has been promoting diversity and inclusion her entire career and is known for being a people-first leader with a strong focus on developing teams and talent.

Steven Rafferty took up the position as CEO in March 2022. He joined Cermaq in2008 holding the position as CFO and later COO Farming in Cermaq until 2010.He re-joined Cermaq in 2019 as Managing Director in Chile. Rafferty has a broad experience from aquaculture since 1993 and has been executive in some global companies with positions as MD of Skretting, and CFO in Mowi, Steven Rafferty has been working in UK, Chile, USA, The Netherlands and Norway during his career.

Lecture title: Salmon Industry Challenges

Catarina Martins is the Chief Sustainability and Technology officer at Mowi ASA (Norway). Catarina coordinates the implementation of Mowi’s sustainability strategy, Leading the Blue Revolution Plan, which includes the vision of unlocking the potential of the oceans to provide healthy and sustainable food for a growing world population. In addition, she also coordinates the group’s innovation activities
leading a team of international experts on fish health and welfare, fish quality and processing, seawater and freshwater production technology and data analytics.
Catarina has a PhD in Aquaculture from Wageningen University (The Netherlands), an MBA from The Norwegian School of Economics (Norway), an MSc in Marine Biology from the University of Lisbon (Portugal) and supplementary education on Corporate Sustainability from Harvard University (USA).
Before starting at Mowi in 2013, Catarina hold several positions as senior researcher at Wageningen University, at the Centre for Marine Sciences (CCMAR) in Portugal and at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna, Austria.

Jorge is the Global Sustainability Manager at Skretting and works together with the global and local teams to implement the Sustainability RoadMap 2025 and fulfil the purpose of “Feeding the Future”. Jorge holds an MSc in International Marketing from King’s College London and a Certificate in Corporate Sustainability from New York University.

Martin has been in the seafood sector for over 40 years. He has been with Austral Fisheries since 1997, and held other roles such as Chair of the international Coalition of Legal Toothfish Operators; member and Chair of Australian Industry Associations; and Board member of the Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies.
He worked for the Australian Government for 12 years, culminating in 5 years as General Manager Fisheries at the Australian Fisheries Management Authority and, earlier, spent several years as a deckhand on demersal longline and trawl vessels. He holds a BSc from Victoria University of Wellington (NZ), a Graduate Diploma in Fisheries Technology from the Australian Maritime College, and is a passionate recreational angler.

Rune M. Moen is currently working with business and service development in DNV Cyber Security Norway, where he also manages several projects for development of Information Security Management Systems (ISMS) and OT Cyber Security Governance for clients. He has lately driven the development of a Cyber Maturity assessment tool with Gjensidige insurance.

He holds a PhD in quality management and has an international work background from large companies working with risk management and corporate governance from among other the food industry.

Per Arild Åland works with service- and business development related to emerging technology/solutions in the rapidly growing mariculture segment. He has close to 30 rewarding years of experience in maritime and offshore industry. Åland has contributed in a number of different roles and positions ranging from senior principal engineer, manager, auditor and head of section within various fields including offshore technology, business development, technology qualification and management.

Lasse has a background working in aquaculture, systems user training and digital procurement. His expertise in these areas enabled him to successfully develop and manage international training courses, as well as work on large-scale global projects in the UK and Norway. Most recently, he was involved in developing a tailor-made managed security service for the aquaculture sector in collaboration with a leading Norwegian seafood company. The project involved the setup of a highly automated security operations centre (SOC) with cloud and identity monitoring solutions and specialized network sensors for operational technologies. In combination with his work experience from aquaculture and his cyber security education he has gained a comprehensive understanding and knowledge of information security management systems.

Mr. Farstad joined Milarex as CEO in 2017. He was the CEO of Norway Seafoods from 2012-2017, for Aker Seafoods 2010-2012 and held various roles at Mowi from 2003-2010. Mr. Farstad is the chairman at the Norwegian food research institution Nofima and was the chairman of the Norwegian Seafood Research Fund (FHF) from 2015 – 2019.

Lecture title: Value added salmon in Europe – recent trends and developments

Ragnar Nystøyl has been with Kontali for over two decades, serving as the Managing Director from 2007-2017 and as Head of Kontali’s analysis department and Chief Analyst since 2017. As a market analyst, Nystøyl’s focus is primarily on farmed salmonids, but has also held a “seafood generalist” role for the past decade. Nystøyl holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration and export marketing from Trondheim Business School and the Madrid campus of Suffolk University, respectively.

Lecture title:Overview Global Salmon Supply, Markets, Trends and Outlook

Lara Barazi-Geroulanou has led Kefalonia Fisheries as its CEO since 1998. Prior to that she worked in investment banking and trading in the US. She is a graduate of Harvard University with a Master’s Degree in International Trade and Finance and of Columbia University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Economics.

She serves on the boards of many industry associations both in Greece and in the EU including the Federation of Greek Maricultures and the Hellenic Aquaculture Producers Organization. She is President of the Federation of European Aquaculture Producers, a Member of the Board of the Benaki Museum and the Advisory Boards of the Blue Revolution Fund as well as the New Agriculture New Generation Organization. She consults to the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) and the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) on issues of sustainable aquaculture development.

She speaks Arabic, English, French and Greek.

Lecture title: MED Seabass and Seabream

Joakim Hauge is an experienced leader within sustainability and green value creation. He is Head of Bio-programs at The Bellona Foundation, working with a number of innovative solutions related to bioeconomy and ecosystem services. This include leading the cooperation platform Råvareløftet, where a broad range of stakeholders work to accelerate the development of new feed ingredients for aquaculture in Norway. Mr. Hauge holds an MSc in biology, from Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Synthesis at the University of Oslo. He has a broad experience on issues related to strategy, innovation and green technologies from NGOs and the private sector, as well as advising international institutions.

Lecture title: What should the salmon eat?

Over 14 years of executive experience in agribusiness and feed & food industry. Experience in strategic planning, management of social and climate risks. Management of multi stakeholder sustainability projects focused on local development and zero deforestation value chains.

Lecture title: CJ Selecta Case: collaboration initiatives toward sustainable soy sourcing

Dr Brett Glencross is the Technical Director of IFFO (The Marine Ingredients Organisation) having commenced this role in June 2021. Prior to this role he was the Professor of Nutrition at the Institute of Aquaculture at the University of Stirling in Scotland. Over the past 25 years he has worked in various academic, institutional, and industrial roles across Australasia, the Middle East and Europe. Throughout his career he has worked closely with many aquaculture production (farming) and feed companies throughout each of these regions. His research achievements have delivered many industrial outcomes resulting in the development of new processes, products, and applications. At an academic level, he was one of the former editors of the journal Aquaculture Nutrition from 2008 to 2016. He is also the current Chair of the International Scientific Committee of the International Society for Fish Nutrition and (ISFN). Brett has Honours and Masters Degrees in Biochemistry from the University of Western Australia and a PhD in Animal Nutrition from the University of Queensland.

Lecture title: Marine Ingredients: Setting the Benchmark for Sustainability

Jonas R. Viðarsson is the Director of division of value creation at Matís ltd. (Icelandic food & biotech R&D) which is a governmentally owned non-profit limited company working on research and innovation in food value chains. Jonas has been involved in a large number of national and international research projects since he started working for Matís 15 years ago. His expertise cover studies related to the entire value chain of different food products, with focus on seafood. These include environmental impact of fisheries and seafood production, traceability, logistics and research on various yield- & quality factors, fisheries management, aquaculture, climate change impacts and adaptation and more.

Lecture title: Matís R&D on alternative proteins for aquafeed

I have a PhD in aquaculture biology from the University of Tromsø. Following five years in EWOS, I have been in the Nutrition and feed technology department of Nofima since 2004, only interrupted by a 15-months stay in AVS Chile. As a senior scientist, I am involved in a broad array of research projects within fish nutrition. In the last years this has included work on topics like protein raw material evaluation, genetics of feed efficiency, salmon fillet pigmentation and studies on novel omega-3 sources for Atlantic salmon.

Lecture title: Novel DHA source securing the future production of healthy, high-quality salmon

Carlos Mera heads Rabobank’s Agri Commodity Market Research team (ACMR) based in London. He joined Rabobank in 2015, having spent over seven years at a large physical commodity trading house. Carlos has visited over a thousand farms in several countries and is an experienced crop forecaster. BSc Economics from University of Buenos Aires; MSc Finance from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Lecture title:Outlook for agricultural commodities in 2023 and beyond

Working as a Senior Analyst at Kontali for almost three decades, Jan Erik Øksenvåg’s focus is primarily on farmed salmonids, operations and leading EUMOFA projects and efforts. A major role as being “market expert“ for EUMOFA, has been linked to surveying and analysing global fisheries and markets for farmed and wild-caught seafood. Øksenvåg holds a bachelor’s degree in economy from NTNU in Trondheim. Since 2012, Øksenvåg has also held a position as board member at Kontali, alongside other appointed board positions in various companies.

Lecture title:Overview Global Whitefish Supply, Markets, Trends and Outlook

Konrad Geldenhuys started his career at Sea Harvest as Commercial Manager in 2009. From 2014 he managed the Sea Harvest Groups’ domestic and international sales channels and all aspects of brand management and marketing as Sales & Marketing Director. Konrad was appointed as Chief Operating Officer in 2022, overseeing all aspects of the value chain of Sea Harvest’s South African fishing operations, including fishing, processing and sales.

Lecture title: Southern African Hake Supply

A qualiﬁed Chef with over 35 years of experience in Fish and Seafood, Mike had a successful career with the leading UK food service company M&J Seafood as Director Purchasing & Marketing. His focus on sustainability issues ensured their commitment to responsible sourcing was maintained. Mike works with the Industry, Governments, NGOs, and Fishermen, to advance safe sustainable ﬁshing and aquaculture. He has served as the North Atlantic Seafood Forum’s International Development Director and was a board member of the Global Seafood Alliance (GSA). Mike represents their Best Seafood Practice Certiﬁcation Programme in Europe and also sits on committees and steering groups such as the Seaﬁsh Common Language Group and the Aquaculture Common Issues Group. He is Deputy Chair of the UK Seafish Supply-chain & Consumer Sector panel and a Fellow of the International Institute of Hotel Management

Mike has served on the Oversight Board for the Responsible Fishing Scheme which has now transitioned to the GSA International Responsible Fishing Vessel Standard (RFVS)

Lecture title: The UK shrimp market

Ian is passionate about sustainable aquaculture and experienced in aquafeed innovation, marketing and sustainable development from earlier roles with EWOS, Cermaq and Cargill. He currently leads Global Business Development for Veramaris, an innovator of omega-3 oil from fermented algae . He holds an MBA from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland and has also studied fish farming. “I believe aquaculture has a bright future” says Ian. “Veramaris helps farmers to produce healthier fish and more sustainable seafood for people to enjoy.”

Lecture title: Unlocking the benefits of Optimum Omega Nutrition

Lise Andreasen is Commercial Director at Cargill Aqua Nutrition North Sea. Cargill’s North Sea business operates three feed factories in Norway and one in Scotland with a total of 413 employees producing fish feed mainly for salmon and trout. The business is part of Cargill Animal Nutrition and Health, which operates 40 factories in 19 countries.

Lise Andreasen has a Master’s degree in fish nutrition from the University of Bergen, an MBA in Seafood Management from NHH – Norwegian School of Economics, and has been working for Cargill since 2009. She has held a number of positions within product development, sales and marketing, and has extensive knowledge of both the customers and the industry.

Lecture title: Why nutrition is fundamental to improving sustainability in fish farming.

Christian Meinich joined Chr. Holtermann AS, Oslo, Norway in 1987 and is today the Managing Director of the company. Holtermann is an independent commodity brokerage house est. 1916, mainly brokering raw materials for the food- feed- and technical industries. Christian is also past president of FOSFA International, London, a contract issuing and arbitral body covering 85% of the global trade in oils and fats. Christian holds a BSBA degree in Finance from University of Denver, USA and an MBA from UCLA Anderson School of Management, Los Angeles, USALecture title: Why nutrition is fundamental to improving sustainability in fish farming.

Chair: Global Aquafeed Summit

Olafur Karl Sigurdarson was appointed EVP of Marel Fish in December 2022. He joined Marel in 2015 and served as Innovation Director for Marel Fish. Prior to that, he was the Service Director for Marel Fish. Olafur is passionate about transforming the way fish is processed and has led strategic project within Marel that has revolutionized the global fish industry.

Lecture title: Beyond the steel | Transforming Seafood Processing

Therese Log Bergjord studied Finance and Marketing at the University of Stavanger. She was in the oil industry in various leading positions with ConocoPhillips for 16 years. In 2003 she became Vice President Finance and Commercial in Pan Fish ASA (later Marine Harvest), a Norwegian based global salmon company. In 2007 she took the role as Global and Norwegian Sales Director in Skretting. In 2009 she joined Compass Group, a global Food and Support services company where she was leading their Nordic Business. Therese re-joined Skretting on 1 November 2017 as CEO.

Lecture title: TBA

Alex Obach holds the position of Innovation Director in Skretting since July 2021 and is the head of Skretting Aquaculture Innovation (Skretting AI). Originally from Barcelona, he is a veterinarian with a Master in Aquaculture from the University of Girona (Spain) and a PhD in fish pathology and immunology from the University of West Brittany (France). He started working at the Skretting Aquaculture Research Centre (ARC) in 1993 as a researcher, initially within fish health then as a nutritionist. From May 2007 to July 2021, he was the Managing Director of Skretting ARC. He was also engaged as lecturer at the University of Barcelona (1995-1997) and worked as Technical Director in Marine Harvest (2004-2007).

Lecture title: Innovation in feed – today and tomorrow

Importer of pelagic and bottom fish from Northern Europe between 1990-2015

Council member of Pelagic Fish Forum

Seafood Champion Award of Seaweb advocacy in 2015(personally)

Published four books with fishery management and sustainability(ditto)

Writing for two major Japanese internet sites with fishery management and sustainability(ditto)

Lecture title: Pacific saury, herring and mackerel stock related with Japan.

Sveinung Johan Ohrem is the research manager for Aquaculture Robotics and Automation at SINTEF Ocean, Department of Aquaculture. He holds a PhD in adaptive control of subsea processes from NTNU. He has been working at SINTEF Ocean since 2019 where his main research has been towards applications of underwater robots in aquaculture, development of novel navigation methods for underwater robots, and robust control of underwater robots.

Lecture title: Digital twins and underwater robotics in aquaculture

Enrico joined the organization in 2009 as Business Manager and Information and was then promoted to Market Research Director in 2017. He is responsible for the market intelligence produced by IFFO also representing the industry within the working group on agri-commodities of OECD-FAO. Enrico graduated from Cagliari University in Sardinia with a Political Science degree before obtaining an MSc in Financial Economics and a PhD in Industrial Economics from the University of Nottingham (UK).

Lecture title: Fishmeal and Fish Oil – supply and demand

Patrick Waty is an experienced aquaculture leader and expert who had his first exposure to the sector in 2005, upon purchasing and growing Seagull NV, the Belgium-based fish processing company. Patrick joined Benchmark’s INVE in November 2021 from SyAqua Group, an industry leader in early-stage nutrition and genetics for shrimp and tilapia, where he was chief executive officer pushing forward Asian market development. Prior to this Patrick spent six years in several key global leadership roles within BernAqua, Epicore Bionetworks, steering the company through a period of mergers, acquisitions, and integration, which significantly and strategically developed Neovia/ ADM business as a global aquaculture director. Patrick has played play a key role in developing and growing Benchmark’s Advanced Nutrition business as well as contributing strategically to the present and future evolution of the company.

Lecture title: Genetic, Nutrition, Health and Environment solutions for performance continuity, from hatchery to harvest.

Morten Hyldborg Jensen has worked a number of years in the whitefish industry, including as Head of Team Frozen Whitefish i Lerøy Seafood ASA (2017-2018), Sales and Marketing Director Primary Processing Norway Seafood AS (2010-2017), Executive Vice President Sales and Marketing Aker Seafoods AS (2005-2010), Director Sales and Marketing Aker Seafoods AS (2002-2005) and Vice President Sales and Marketing Stolt Sea Farm AS (1998-2002). Morten is a board member of Norwegian Seafood Association (2021-). He has also held positions in board and committees at Norwegian Center of Expertice, Aquaculture 2008-2010), Marine Stewardship Council (20082017), Norwegian Seafood Council (2011-2017) and Norwegian Seafood Federation (2011-).

Lecture title: Global White Fish Supply

Dave Robb is the Program Lead for SeaFurther™ Sustainability, the signature sustainability initiative of Cargill Aqua Nutrition. Having worked on sustainability issues in aqua feeds for 20 years, he has experience across a broad range of issues, from supply chains and feed production, to how feeds can enable more sustainable farming. Working on sustainable aquaculture can cover just about every aspect of the feed business, requiring a great degree of flexibility and collaboration within the business. In Cargill, this also means working across species as diverse as salmon, shrimp, tilapia and even alligators!

Through SeaFurther, Cargill is focusing on reducing the greenhouse gas emissions associated with our customers’ farming activities, which also supports development across a broad range of other topics related to sustainability. Progress on these topics helps development towards more sustainable aquaculture. Cargill addresses sustainability through our value chain, from our raw material suppliers to how well our customers can grow their seafood using our nutritional products and services. Robb is working with broader Cargill teams and with our partners throughout the value chain from origin to end consumer to create sustainable developments – and transform, measure and report the benefits. Find out more at www.cargill.com/seafurther.
For Cargill Aqua Nutrition, Robb also leads work with suppliers of fishmeal and fish oil to develop towards more sustainably managed fisheries. Fisheries are key components of global food systems, but many are over-fished. With a focus on forage fisheries, but also recognizing their interaction with fisheries for direct human consumption and non-target species, Robb is working in Cargill’s supply chain to establish and complete credible fishery improvement projects (FIPs), with the goal of improving fishery regulations and practices. The goal of this work is to create steady improvement through compliance with the FAO Code of Good Practice for Fishery Management, which supports MarinTrust certification of fishmeal factories, to compliance with the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) standards. Robb is working with six FIPs currently and is hoping to engage in others.

Lecture title: Feed sustainability expectations are at risk from volatile markets

Mr. Rutten has spent most of his career in business management roles in sustainably produced ingredients. After an initial start in the global sourcing organization of DSM, he joined DSM – Sinochem pharmaceuticals where he held several business director positions in Europe, the United states and Asia. In 2021 he joined Corbion to lead the commercial organization of its Algae Ingredients business. He has a strong belief in the power of aligning business objectives with purpose and sustainability to create true value for companies, their stakeholders and society at large. In this light he has led international advocacy programs in connection to the United Nations and World Health Organization to combat antimicrobial resistance. Mr. Rutten holds a Bachelor and Master degree in business administration and supply chain management.

Lecture title: Strategically managing sustainable Omega-3

Matthias Flach has been working at Siemens for more than 10 years in various roles within Digital Industries. Having a background as software architect at the German headquarters, he moved to Norway in 2019, where he continues to drive the topics of digitalization and future of automation as Technical Account Manager, including the aquaculture vertical.

Lecture title: “Edge, AI, Future of Automation” – How aquaculture can benefit from new technology!