Dropping out of college to become a skateboarder and ending up as the CEO of a company is not a very common story, but it’s not an impossible one either. It is the story of Matts Johansen, the man who, when we tell him how difficult we find the task that describes his CEO position on the Aker BioMarine website – “Matts is on a mission to improve human and planetary health” -, says that he has a different approach to things, which perhaps explains why the move to the corporate world wasn’t necessarily a career decision that changed his life, but rather a life decision that changed his career.

After living abroad for many years during his twenties, Matts Johansen decided to return home to Norway, mostly for the sake of his children. He certainly couldn’t have imagined at the time how this decision would lead to finding another new home for himself, a home within the Aker BioMarine family. Twelve years later, he is still there. He went from having only three people in his team to billing $300 million, though still in the red, he remarks, but about to be black. The Aker BioMarine’s CEO has a plan, and it is a long-term one, “for life” as he says.