The people behind GSA

Wally Stevens joined the Global Aquaculture Alliance in 2007 as Executive Director and, through the end of 2021, will hold the CEO post at the Global Seafood Alliance, a newly formed international organization for responsible seafood that was his longstanding vision and decades-long achievement. As a 50-year veteran of the seafood industry, Stevens has held leadership positions in large, publicly traded corporations as well as start-up salmon farms and mid-sized, family-owned companies with responsibilities encompassing all aspects of the seafood production chain. Stevens has played a critical role in the growth of the Global Aquaculture Alliance and its Best Aquaculture Practices certification program. He has been a volunteer with the National Fisheries Institute for years, serving as chairman in 2001 and cofounding the Future Leaders program in 1998. Wally currently serves as a trustee of the University System of New Hampshire.

Dr. George Chamberlain is the founding president of the Global Aquaculture Alliance, which started as an association of shrimp producers in the 1990s and is now the Global Seafood Alliance, a leading international non-governmental organization advocating for responsible seafood practices. Chamberlain began his career as an aquaculture graduate student in 1975 before directing aquaculture programs at Ralston Purina International and Monsanto. He led the development of an integrated shrimp farm in Malaysia and in 2004 he co-founded Kona Bay, a shrimp farming technology company in Hawaii and Asia, which multi-species breeding and genetics technology company Hendrix Genetics fully took over in 2020. Chamberlain served as President of the World Aquaculture Society in 1996. In 1997, George assisted in founding the Global Aquaculture Alliance and continues to serve as President.

Seafood industry veteran Brian Perkins joined the Global Seafood Alliance as Chief Operating Officer in early 2021 with more than 40 years of experience in the seafood certification space, events and media. For the previous six years, Perkins acted as Regional Director-Americas for the Marine Stewardship Council, the world’s leading wild fisheries certification program. At MSC, Perkins’ team energized the program in the Americas region, increasing consumer awareness, the number of MSC-labeled products and the number of participants engaged with the program. Over the years he has established strong working relationships with NGOs and industry, particularly during his 15 years at Diversified Communications in Portland, Maine, which operates leading seafood exhibitions in the United States and Europe.