About Us

Chris Ninnes was appointed CEO of the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) in October 2011. Before joining the ASC, Chris was Deputy CEO and Director of Operations at the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) from 2006 to 2011, where he led the expansion of the MSC¹s technical and commercial work. From 2003 to 2006 Chris was Vice President of MRAG Americas, which followed his appointment as Technical Director for MRAG Ltd from 1996 until 2002. Chris worked for the UK Department for International Development from 1983 to 2002 where he advised on seafood industry development issues in Africa and the Caribbean. He has also been a professional inshore fisherman.

Since 2020, Willem is the owner of Shrimp Insights, a leading consulting and intelligence outfit within the shrimp sector. He has travelled across the shrimp industry in Europe, Asia, Latin America and the US for over 10 years. Before starting Shrimp Insights he was co-founder and managing director of Seafood Trade Intelligence Portal (Seafood-Tip) and the ShrimpTails magazine which he developed into one of the most well known shrimp industry intelligence platforms. Willem also held positions as aquaculture program developer for Wageningen University and Solidaridad Network, and was the head of Aqua Insights at Aqua-Spark. Willem has one of the most well established networks in the shrimp industry.

Esther Luiten is Commercial Director at the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) and has over 15 years of experience in the global seafood sector. Focus of her team at ASC is on engaging retailers and seafood brands into ASC programme. The Market Development Team is also strengthening relationships with key stakeholders such as NGOs, governments and researchers in key markets and production countries accross the globe. Before joining the ASC, Esther was programme manager at the Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH) and responsible for their aquaculture market transformation program. She was Deputy Director of a Dutch environmental organisation, the North Sea Foundation. She has a scientific background in Environmental Innovation and Communication, achieved her PhD in Innovation Studies and has been since then very much interested in facilitating the global seafood supply chain towards more sustainable practices.

Jørgen owns and operates Oslo based Contango AS which is an advisory firm providing commercial services and corporate finance advice within the global seafood industry and bio-marine sector; started in 2004. Jørgen is a seasoned business developer and entrepreneur. He was the founder and former managing director of the world’s largest seafood business conference, North Atlantic Seafood Forum (NASF), in Bergen for 15 years, co-owned with Pareto Securities. For 8 years he was part of Pareto’s seafood corporate finance team in Oslo.  Prior to becoming engaged in the seafood sector in 2004, Jørgen worked for 25 years within the oil and gas industry as oil products trader in London and New York, and later as project manager within natural gas/LNG and el-power in Norway.

Johan has been involved in the seafood industry for almost 25 years. Since 2021 he works at Veramaris as Director International Business Development. Before that, he worked for over 8 years as sales director and later director of operations at Seafood Connection (a subsidiary of Maruha Nichiro Group). He started his career at Marine Harvest where he worked for over 13 years as sales manager and later sales director.  

Lynn van Rennes is the project manager of PINO, the PCO of the second edition of the Global Shrimp Forum.  PINO is a full-service conference and event agency based in Utrecht, the Netherlands.