Jørn Henriksen

Jørn Henriksen is the Director of Expedition Operations for Viking. Raised in Tromsø, Norway, he has spent most of his life in the Arctic and brings 25 years of expedition management experience to Viking. He has worked as head expedition leader in Svalbard, Antarctica and other polar regions, and has led multiple ski and hiking expeditions in the High Arctic. During his 11 years at Hurtigruten, Henriksen was an operations manager and then head of polar operations. He is the founding partner and former chairman of the Association of Arctic Expedition Cruise Operators and is also a former executive committee member of the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators. Henriksen’s education includes time in the Royal Norwegian Air Force as well as an outdoor leadership and political science degrees from UiT The Arctic University of Norway in Tromsø.

Dr. Damon Stanwell-Smith

Damon Stanwell-Smith is a marine scientist, with a successful career in remote-location research management in polar, temperate and tropical environments.  After completing an honours degree in Marine Biology, Damon spent 3 years (1992-95) working as a biologist/diver on a British Antarctic Survey base, gaining a PhD and a healthy respect for sea ice, leopard seals and an appreciation of fresh fruit.  This led to five years of managing field-research teams in Africa and Asia before returning to the Antarctic as an expedition leader on expedition-cruise vessels.  Damon has since held leadership roles, variously at the UN Environment Program’s World Conservation Monitoring Centre, in International marine consultancy and most recently as Executive Director of the International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO). Damon is Cambridge UK based; and whenever work and pandemics allow, escapes with his family by bicycle or on their traditional Drascombe sailboat.

Aaron Lawton

Aaron Lawton, Fellow of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society (RCGS), joined Viking in 2020 as Expedition Operations Manager. Based in British Columbia, Canada, he brings over two decades of experience in expedition cruising as a leader and kayak guide on more than 150 voyages to the polar regions of the Arctic and Antarctica. In 2001, Aaron and his wife, Cathy, also kayaked the length of the Antarctic Peninsula on an unsupported sea kayak expedition. Aaron’s passion for adventure and firsthand knowledge ensures exciting developments for our new Viking Expeditions launching in 2022.

In 2015, Aaron received the RCGS Erebus Medal. It was presented to him and the other senior members of Parks Canada’s Underwater Archaeology Team for their successful discovery of HMS Erebus—an exploration ship lost during Sir John Franklin’s 1845–1848 search for the Northwest Passage—in the Arctic Archipelago during the 2014 Victoria Strait Expedition.