QRILL Aqua from Norway strengthens team with two new leaders

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The Norwegian company Aker BioMarine has announced that is adding to its Animal Health and Nutrition Business Unit organizational chart after successfully recruiting two new leaders. Sales executive, Bjørn Wallentin, will join the company as Senior Vice President QRILL Aqua Sales, and Aker BioMarine’s current Director of Sustainability, Ragnhild Dragøy, will take on a new role as Vice President Product Management, a newly created department within Animal Health and Nutrition.

“With Bjørn’s strong sales background and Ragnhild’s understanding of sustainable product development for human and animal nutrition, we are well-positioned for our next chapter,” says for its part Sigve Nordrum, EVP Animal Health & Nutrition, of the company based in Oslo, Aker BioMarine.

“The benefits of QRILL Aqua as a functional ingredient go across species, and we continue to uncover the health benefits of this tiny Antarctic crustacean. Our course is set for growth, and with that we aim to strengthen our leadership team and expand into new areas,” he added.

To support and build the teams sales

Bjørn Wallentin comes to Aker BioMarine from the position as Regional Vice President for the Americas region at Jotun, a company where he has spent 27 years of his career in a number of different roles. In his new role as a part of the QRILL Aqua team, he will work to continuously to support and build the team’s sales and value creation within the QRILL Aqua existing and future product lines.

“This is a great opportunity to be part of a sustainable and critical industry, both in terms of our food future and health across species. Aker BioMarine has exciting opportunities in its sights, as we look towards to new markets, new retail channels and new ways of reaching customers. To have the opportunity to work with such a professional team played an important role for me moving to Aker BioMarine,” says Wallentin.

Building up a new unit with focus on the product lifecycle

In the other hand, Ragnhild Dragøy is a long-time marine biotechnology executive, who joined Aker BioMarine in 2021 as Director of Sustainability. She previously served as Research Director, Marine Biotechnology, for Nofima Norway. In her new role, she will help build up the company’s new unit, which will focus on the product lifecycle within Aker BioMarine’s Animal Health and Nutrition business.

“My role will be to manage and develop a very competent team that is equipped to meet our new unit’s goals. We must also work to secure solid collaboration across the company, to optimally position our QRILL products in every segment. And, it’s especially important to integrate the important sustainability work into our QRILL product and messaging,” says Dragøy.

An Antarctic krill-harvesting company

Aker BioMarine is a biotech innovator and Antarctic krill-harvesting company, dedicated to improving human and planetary health.

Listed on Oslo Stock Exchange, the company develops krill-based ingredients for pharmaceutical, nutraceutical (Superba, NKO and K·REAL), aquaculture (QRILL Aqua), and animal feed applications (QRILL Pet), including INVI, a highly concentrated protein isolate, and LYSOVETA, a targeted transporter of EPA and DHA from krill.

Aker BioMarine’s transparent value chain stretches from sustainable krill harvesting in pristine Antarctic waters through its Montevideo logistics hub, Houston production plant, and to customers around the world, they say. The company’s strong focus on sustainability inspired the launch of AION by Aker BioMarine, a circularity company dedicated to helping companies to recycle and reuse waste. It’s good to remember that krill is one of the planet’s largest biomasses. This tiny crustacean, present in all oceans, holds a vital position in the marine food chain. Through millions of years of evolution, krill’s bioactive components and molecules have sustained Nature’s diverse species