Mr. Lea graduated from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences in 1981.

After that he has worked in the aquaculture industry, primarily with aquaculture feed development. He has worked with the feed company Skretting with product development and later as sustainability manager. He has also participated in developing and maintaining the GlobalGAP and Aquaculture Stewardship farm and feed standards. Mr. Lea also has served on the board of the MarinTrust standard programme. Today Mr. Lea serves a senior advisor in a certification body that works with certification of seafood related standards.

His field of interest is especially in responsible sourcing of feed raw materials and how this efficiently can be implemented through the development of private standards and official regulations.