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.

Ambassador Peter Thomson has served as the UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for the Ocean since 2017. In this role he is driving the implementation of UN Sustainable Development Goal 14, to conserve and sustainably use the resources of the Ocean. From 2016-2017, Ambassador Thomson served as President of the General Assembly of the United Nations. He was Fiji’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 2010 to 2016, during which time he was President of the Executive Board of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the United Nations Office of Project Services (UNOPS).
Ambassador Peter Thomson is honorary doctor at the University of Bergen, and goodwill ambassador for the One Ocean Expedition.

Peter B. de Menocal is the eleventh president and director of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. A marine geologist and paleoclimatologist, de Menocal’s research uses deep-sea ocean sediments as archives of how and why Earth’s ocean and climate have changed in the past in order to predict how they may change in the future.

Prior to assuming leadership of WHOI, de Menocal was the Thomas Alva Edison/Con Edison Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. He served as Columbia’s Dean of Science for the Faculty of Arts & Sciences and founded Columbia’s Center for Climate & Life, a climate solutions research accelerator.

Some awards and distinctions: Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, AGU Emiliani lecturer, Columbia Lenfest Distinguished Faculty award, and Distinguished Brooksian award.

The former Prime Minister of Norway ( 2013-2021) Co-chaired the assembley of the High-level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy(2018-2021) and introduced the topic at the G7 Summit. Her Government supported the World Bank’s PROblue initiative to prevent marine damage.
The Ocean Panel was established in 2018 and comprises heads of state and government from 14 countries. The Norwegian Prime Minister and the President of Palau have co-chaired the Panel from the start. Erna Solberg is leader of the Norwegian Conservative Party.

Erna Solberg was born and educated in Bergen: Norway’s ancient maritime capital and gateway to the Atlantic Ocean.

Knut Arild Hareide was leader of the Christian Democratic Party from 2011 to 2019 and has been active in both local and national politics. Hareide was a member of the Storting from 2009 to 2021. From 2004 to 2005 he was Minister of the Environment, and from 2020 to 2021 he was Minister of Transport and Communications. He holds an MSc in Business Economics from the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, and has worked as Organisation Director, Project Manager and Business Developer in Schibsted.
The Norwegian Maritime Authority is a key player in the implementation of the Green Shift in the maritime industry and a natural partner to the entire maritime industry.

Beate holds a MSc in Petroleum Geology, from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Her career started in Schlumberger, before she joined Equinor in 1991 where she has had a long leadership career spanning various positions within subsurface and drilling, including drilling facilities construction, both on NCS and in Asia. She has been Asset owner and head of Operations for several oil and gas fields offshore Norway.
In 2017 she joined Renewables, where she has had leading positions in offshore wind in the UK, and experience with solar and carbon capture technology. She is now SVP of Renewable solutions, global technical support to operations and projects.
She is a board member of WindEurope and of Havbyen Bergen.

Craig Churchill is a British/American Entrepreneur and the COO of Tidal, an applied Machine Learning, Robotics and Machine Perception company at Google[x], focused on protecting and preserving the oceans in collaboration with ocean based industries.

Craig’s career spans over 30 years, where he has worked at some of the world’s most innovative and successful technology companies including Microsoft, SGI, Sun Microsystems, Oracle and presently X, Alphabet’s semi-secretive advanced R&D organization focused on delivering 10x (not just 10%) impact on the world’s most intractable problems.

Jan Ole Huseby has close to 20 years’ experience from the maritime industries, primarily from a financial angle. He has headed DNB’s global Ocean Industries division since 2020. DNB is one of the world’s leading maritime banks with a broad international approach in industries such as seafood, shipping, the maritime services sector and ocean energy, hereunder oil, gas and offshore wind. The bank has an active approach to the energy transition and was, amongst other initiatives, one of the founding banks of the Poseidon Principles, a global framework for responsible ship financing.
Jan Ole Huseby holds a Master of Law from the University of Oslo and an MBA from Copenhagen Business School.

Synnøve Seglem is the president of the Norwegian Shipowner’s Association. Seglem is also the owner and deputy managing director of Knutsen OAS Shipping. Seglem has a master’s degree in Material Science and Engineering from Imperial College in London and a master’s in Shipping, Trade, and Finance from Cass Business School in London.

Henning Beltestad has been CEO of Lerøy Seafood Group since 2010. He started in Hallvard Lerøy ASA in 1993 and has had many positions within the firm since then. Henning Beltestad became managing director of Hallvard Lerøy AS in 2007, and in 2008 he became a boardmember in the Group management with Sales and Distribution as his field of responsibility. Henning Beltestad has a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the Norwegian School of Management.