Judges


The awards are judged by an esteemed panel of industry leaders and experts, the judging is a rigorous two-stage process including pre-scoring to determine shortlists and a judging meeting where entries are discussed and evaluated in detail to decide the winning entries.

From a transparency perspective, we may video aspects of the judging session to give entrants an insight into why a winning entry was chosen.

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Judges

Lukas Adamec | Performance Marketing Manager | DACH at Zendesk

Lukas Adamec has been working within Paid Digital for 11+ years, during which he transitioned from an employee to a freelancer & CEO of Abadam Marketing. In the last 5 years Lukas has focused on Consultancy - working with established agencies to deliver client growth. His focus is particularly on international paid opportunities, from Google to Yandex, from Naver to Baidu, from Yahoo JP to Seznam. Lukas is a firm believer in knowledge sharing and enjoys discussing experiences with established online marketers as well as providing training to new colleagues. During his time off, Lukas recharges his energy by being disconnected from online influences and instead spends his time on wildlife photography.

Dan Barker |  EBusiness Consultant | Independent Consultant  EBusiness Consultant

Dan has worked in ecommerce for around 20 years. He has worked within companies in ecommerce functions, up to CMO level, has worked on projects for more than 100 ecommerce businesses as a consultant, and has co-owned a couple of ecommerce businesses with millions of visitors and hundreds of millions of turnover between them over the years. He enjoys the opportunity that ecommerce has brought and can bring to people all over the world.

Montserrat Cano | INTERNATIONAL SEO & DIGITAL MARKETING CONSULTANT

Montserrat Cano is an integrated digital marketer, SEO and project manager who has worked in a wide range of sectors both in the UK and internationally, halfway between in-house and as consultant. Her focus and passion is on solving issues to maximise business results, Being bilingual English-Spanish, she has spoken at international events and mentors other SEO/ digital professionals to help make the industry stronger. She is a University Associate Professor, is co-authoring an upcoming book on digital marketing and has contributed to the recent book SEO in 2023.

Ellie England | Sales Director | Microsoft

As a Commercial Director for Microsoft Advertising, for the past 7 years. Ellie has been spearheading the continued investment in the North of the UK and beyond, leading a growing team of talented media sales consultants and juggling life as a proud mother of two children, 5 and 3.

Veronika Höller | Global SEO Manager | CompuGroup Medical |

I'm a Global Senior SEO-Manager and I have worked in SEO and PPC marketing for over 14 years. I started as a copywriter and PPC Manager in a little Ads Agency. I have continuously developed myself further into the direction of SEO. Over the years, I have worked as a digital marketing manager in agencies and international companies, including CompuGroup, where I’m now. International SEO, technical SEO, and the optimization of landing pages are top of my priority list. I view SEO as a whole puzzle and not just individual sub-areas, hence why I trained myself in all areas – content, technology, PPC, SMM and UX. All these pieces are important t o have a strong domain and building strong brand worldwide –only when all the pieces of the puzzle come together, the rankings goes up, and you make money with your website.

LinkedIn profile

Navah Hopkins | VP of Strategic Marketing | ADZOOMA

Navah Hopkins is the VP of Strategic Marketing at Adzooma, a platform that makes managing your ad channels easy and fast. A veteran of the digital marketing industry, she began as an SEO in 2008, transitioning to PPC in 2012. Throughout her career, Navah has made a point to give back and loves sharing lessons learned on the international speaking circuit as well as local universities. She is a frequent contributor to SEJ, SEMrush, and WordStream blogs/webinars. In 2019, she became a founding member of the Paid Search Association, a group dedicated to empowering the next generation of PPC practitioners, as well as serving as a resource for all practitioners to learn from and share with the community.

Lada Kalashnickova | Head of SEO | COPYBET EU LTD

Lada has worked in digital marketing since 2003. She specializes in all aspects of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), with a focus on technical SEO, multilingual search and mobile optimization. Her clients have included Starco, Action-MCFR, and Artec 3D. Lada worked as a Global Head of SEO in Acronis, then she was a Head of SEO at SEMRush. Lada now works as the Head of SEO/ASO in CopyBet EU Ltd, the first social betting platform founded in 2015. CopyBet is a fast-growing tech company, focused on providing the best experience for their customers while following the principles of Transparency and Fair Trade. Lada enjoys lifetime studying; most recently on topics around data, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning. Her favorite tools are Excel, GWT, GA, Yandex Metrica and brains. Outside of work, she enjoys travelling, yoga, and Japanese Art. Definitely a cat person.

Diane Kulseth | Senior Solution Expert for SEO | Site Improve

Diane Kulseth is the Senior Solution Expert for SEO at Siteimprove, where she leads SEO education for the global team and works with customers and prospective customers in building a stronger SEO strategy. Prior to her current role, she served in Digital Strategy positions at the University of St. Thomas, the largest private college in Minnesota and local non-profit, CaringBridge.org. With over 10 years of cross-vertical experience, including Fortune 500 brands, e-Commerce, Healthcare, and Government, Diane enjoys digging into and solving complex digital marketing problems that customers face, enabling them to connect with qualified audiences and increase their brand reach. She is also a frequent digital marketing instructor for large universities in the United States.

Kaz Laljee | Head of Digital | Soc-Med: Social Media

A Chartered Marketer with years of experience, both as an academic and practitioner. Kaz has been involved in marketing since university and has a real passion for it! It gives him the perfect blend of knowledge and industry experience; which has seen him establish himself as an authority when it comes to digital marketing. Kaz also has a knack for taking complex marketing theory and technical jargon and making it easy to understand.

Davina Lines | Managing Director | Mixing Digital

Davina Lines is Managing Director of Mixing Digital and the Ecommerce Club. She brings a wealth of knowledge and a big black book of digital contacts to ensure Mixing Digital’s event management services are of the highest standard. Davina co-founded Netimperative in 1999 and became Managing Director in 2002, stewarding the brand into new product launches and creating one of the most successful events programmes in the digital marketing industry. In the mid 90s Davina cut her digital teeth on New Media Age (now Econsultancy), forming part of the founding team and was responsible for the commercial development of the magazine and its early events from launch in May 1995 to 1999. In recent years Davina launched an ecommerce peer-to-peer community, the Ecommerce Club, which runs regular events in London and Manchester on topics relevant to the retail community.

Trond Lyngbø | SENIOR SEO CONSULTANT | Search Planet AS |

Trond Lyngbø is the founder of Search Planet and a senior SEO Consultant. He has over two decades of experience in SEO, e-commerce, content strategy and digital analysis. His clients include multinational Fortune 500 corporations and major Norwegian companies. Trond has helped grow businesses through more effective search marketing and SEO strategies. He is most passionate about working with e-commerce companies and web shops to develop and expand their omni-channel marketing initiatives.

LinkedIn profile

Aoife McIlraith | Global Search Consultant

Aoife McIlraith is an award-winning global search consultant. Named one of the “Top 20 Women making the biggest impact in Marketing Tech” in 2019. She provides consultancy to brands on international SEO, multilingual marketing and strategies, digital globalization and transformations. She is currently partnering with global brands to define multilingual voice search and digital assistant marketing strategies. She has spoken at numerous international marketing conferences covering most recently multilingual voice search. International conferences including 3XE, SEMRush Live Prague, DMEXCO, Sirius Decisions London, Localization World Beijing and Tokyo and eConsultancy Singapore. Aoife holds first class honours post graduate degrees in web science technologies and digital marketing. As a qualified programmer and developer, she provides a powerful combination and understanding of both technology and digital marketing to global brand stakeholders. Aoife has worked in marketing, technology, public relations and communications positions in Ireland and San Francisco.

Chris Nightingale | PPC Manager | AO.com

Chris is an experienced Digital Marketing Strategist with a passion to deliver through the ever evolving eCommerce landscape. His passion for digital led him to focus more on Online Retail and the exciting nuances of working for an exclusively online retailer. He is part of the vibrant AO.com Digital marketing and commerce team, on the forefront of the latest trends and technologies in order to bolster AO.com’s presence within a competitive market space

Janna Pugh | SEO Manager | Vintage King Audio

Janna Pugh is a SEO Manager with a history of agency and in-house work. She has recently been nationally recognized as the Industry Rising Star in Conductor's 2022 C2 Summit and regularly speaks with college classes about the essentials of organic marketing. With her passion for SEO, she knows firsthand how to make the smallest and largest websites succeed organically. Her areas of focus specialize in enterprise SEO, with scalability and automation for both small and large SEO teams. Her varied approach to SEO combines on-site content with off-site brand management. In her free time, she loves trying out new recipes and reading mystery novels.'

Liam Quinn | Technical Consultant | Vervaunt

Liam Quinn heads up the technical arm of Vervaunt, the London based ecommerce & paid media consultancy. Working alongside some of the most premium and ambitious brands Internationally, within a range of verticals, to advise and give hands-on assistance in architecting and delivering the right technical solutions to achieve their business goals. With 10 years of experience in the ecommerce space, Liam has previously run several development teams within Northern based agencies, delivering apps and websites across a range of platforms. Going on to become Head of Digital at a 40-man Northern & National Digital award winning agency, running projects for International brands replatforming and scaling their ecommerce offering.

Mohsin Shafiq | Head of Digital and Marketing | Sodexo

Mohsin Shafiq plays at the intersection of marketing and digital transformation. He has worked on various digital marketing, sales and operational excellence projects: from developing and implementing multichannel marketing and communications delivery programmes; to developing go-to-market strategies; to remapping the customer journey by integrating sales and marketing capabilities to drive top line growth.

Sophia Storey | 3 Sided Cube | co-founder

Puff Story is Co-Founder of 3 Sided Cube USA, responsible for the client relationships and impact of projects. Named as one of the top 100 most influential business developers in the UK, Puff is known for her contagious laughter, love of neon colours and an unrelenting passion to help organisations such as The American Red Cross, The World Resources Institute and Save the Children to make a real difference. Puff has vast amounts of practical experience in a variety of industries but has a love for using tech for good in the NGO, charity and third sector.

Lukasz Zelezny | SEO Consultant |

Lukasz Zelezny, UK Search Awards judge, Top10 UK Social Media influencer and former director of organic performance at uSwitch / Zoopla. Currently is working as an independent SEO Consultant helping in organic traffic acquisition, technical SEO and content marketing. Lukasz started his career in 2005 and has since been responsible for the organic performance of a number of companies including HomeAway, Thomson Reuters, The Digital Property Group, Fleetway Travel, uSwitch, Zoopla. Each year Lukasz is speaking at many SEO and social media conferences. He was a speaker at ClickZ Shanghai China, ClickZ Jakarta Indonesia, SiMGA Malta, SES London as well as Marketing Festival in Brno, Brighton SEO in Brighton and UnGagged in London. Every year he is actively participating in 10 to 20 events as an SEO/Social Media keynote speaker. Additionally, he organizes workshops and meetups where he is sharing tips around SEO, Social Media and Analytics.

LinkedIn profile

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