The Iditarod is a 1,000-mile sled dog race held every March. The event, which started in 1973, takes mushers and their dogs from Anchorage to Nome.
Aker’s Johansen, who completed the event in just under eight days, sat down with NutraIngredients to explain why he subjected himself to the grueling race across Alaska’s snow-covered terrain. It all came down to something he calls post-traumatic growth, he said.
“You need to go through these hardships sometimes to make you strong and prepared for the ups and downs in life and business in general,” Johansen said. “So that’s the kind of the concept that has kind of taken me into saying yes to these types of challenges.”
On the lessons for leadership, Johansen said that one of the best things he learned was how body language impacts the performance of the dogs.
“I think that is a good reminder for all the leaders you know in our business and businesses general, that as a leader, the body language that you show when you walk the hallways or you meet the colleague in the hallway, that is so important for the kind of drive and attitude able to create in the company,” he explained.
Krill oil for the win!
Being the CEO of krill oil player Aker BioMarine, Johansen practices what he preaches, noting he took krill oil supplements during the eight-day race to cope with the stresses—mental and physical—of the event.
“It’s very stressful for the body to go through something like that,” he said. “It took eight days where you are in physical activity. You don’t eat enough; you don’t sleep enough. It puts a lot of strain on the body, and the reaction for your body in this type of situation is to start inflammation, because that’s when you start to repair things that are wrong. I take krill oil to manage those inflammatory responses.”
Johansen added that the company has data in triathletes that supports the potential of krill oil to aid recovery.
“I’m the guinea pig, trying out [krill oil] on the extreme, but we have actual scientific data backing up the same thing,” he said.
And it wasn’t just Johansen consuming krill products but also the dogs, who were fed both protein and oil from krill to help them with inflammation.
“These Alaskan Huskies that we use, they are recovering extremely fast,” he said. “They will run [for] seven hours. You take a two, three-hour break, they will sleep, they will eat, and they’re almost fully recovered, ready to go again.”
The company sees the pet supplement sector as an important business area, with Johansen noting that people pay attention to their dogs the same way they do to their kids and their family.
So, what’s next for Johansen, what new “trauma” is he seeking out?
“I think this is enough trauma for a while, right?” he said. “We tried to set a new world record. We didn’t. I mean, we had to do it in seven days. It took us seven days and 22 hours. So that didn’t work out, but it was 40 below. You don’t get inside to get warm. So, it’s a combination of exhaustion, the fact you’re in the middle of the night, it’s dark around you, and you’re not sure where you are. Are there wolves around you? Who knows. It’s quite stressful. So, it’s going to be the krill business and the ups and downs of that for at least a year or two before I do something else.”
Watch the video for the full interview.
