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 a Board Member of the Global Shrimp Forum and actively involved in its programme development. She has over 20 years of leadership in the international seafood sector and drives sustainable transformation across global supply chains. Esther spent 12 years at the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) in multiple Director roles, focusing on market development, supply chain engagement and programme innovation. She holds a PhD in Environmental Innovation from Utrecht University and previously held key positions at the Sustainable Trade Initiative (IDH) and served as Deputy Director of the North Sea Foundation, a Dutch environmental NGO.

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 nearly 25 years of experience in the seafood industry. He previously served as Director of International Business Development at Veramaris and spent over 8 years at Seafood Connection, a subsidiary of the Maruha Nichiro Group, where he held roles as Sales Director and later Director of Operations. His career began at Marine Harvest, where he spent over 13 years as Sales Manager and later Sales Director.

Currently, Johan is the Managing Director at Morubel, a Cooke company, and serves as a board member of the Global Shrimp Forum Foundation.

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.