The Global Aquaculture Alliance (GAA) has announced a transition in its leadership. Industry veteran Andrew Mallison is joining the trade association as executive director, as Wally Stevens, who has held the job since 2007, is stepping aside to focus on other strategic ventures within the organization.
Stevens will stay on as executive director through the transition, as Mallison takes the helm as soon as his successor at IFFO – The Marine Ingredients Organization is in place, working out of the organization’s Portsmouth, New Hampshire, USA headquarters. Stevens will continue to serve on GAA’s board of directors and executive committee.
Since 2011, Mallison has been director general of IFFO, an international trade group with offices in the United Kingdom, Peru and China, representing and promoting the marine ingredients sector. In that time, he relocated the head office, restructured the team, managed the relaunch of the brand and a new website, provided governance guidelines for the non-UK board and grew membership to an all-time high, particularly in China and Southeast Asia.
Mallison has a lifetime career in the seafood sector. Before joining IFFO’s leadership team in 2011, he was director of standards and licensing for the Marine Stewardship Council from 2009-11 and global sourcing manager for seafood at UK retailer Marks & Spencer from 1996-2009, working with suppliers from Madagascar to Alaska, including establishing an award-winning salmon-farming program in Scotland. He has also worked as technical manager for Maple Leaf Foods and as a technical director for Premier Foods (UK) Ltd.
GAA’s newly appointed executive director has a B.Sc. in fisheries science, commercial fishing, fish farming, marine law, fisheries economics and marine biology from the University of the South West (formerly Plymouth School of Maritime Studies) in the UK and completed an executive development program at Henley Business School.
Under Stevens’ leadership, GAA has experienced unprecedented growth, evolving into the world’s leading standards-setting organization for farmed seafood through the development of its Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP) third-party certification program. During the past decade the number of BAP-certified processing plants, farms, hatcheries and feed mills has ballooned from just over 100 to nearly 1,900 today.
Stevens’ career in seafood spans nearly five decades. He has held leadership positions in large, publicly traded corporations as well as start-up salmon farming operations and mid-sized, family-owned companies. His responsibilities have included all aspects of the seafood production chain. Stevens has been a volunteer with the National Fisheries Institute for years, serving as chairman in 2001 and co-founding the Future Leaders program in 1998.