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 show at the ceremony and give entrants an insight into why a winning entry was chosen.
Become a Judge Previous Judges
We Are Search Awards Ambassadors
Our Ambassadors are; Michael Bonfils, Roberto Croci, Motoko Hunt, Judith Lewis and Lukasz Zelezny. Find out more about our ambassadors below:
Michael Bonfils is the Founder and CEO of SEM International, an award-winning global agency with 32 network offices worldwide. Specializing in multilingual digital marketing, they support global advertising agencies and multinational corporations with their international Digital marketing needs from PPC, SEO, Social Media, eCommerce, Content and localization services.
Michael became involved in the search industry in 1997 and since then, has been a regular industry contributor and speaker at conferences worldwide. Over his career, he has worked in-house, at a search engine and has sold his first agency in 2004. Since then, he and his agency has worked with and consulted for over 100 global brands such as Intel, HP, Activision/Blizzard, Medtronic, Mastercard, Sony and many others.
Michael has volunteered his time as a board member for a number of digital marketing organizations and has been a judge on multiple awards worldwide since 2015. He is honored to be a Search Award Ambassador and is committed to increasing its value as a premium, highly recognized award amongst the search industry.
Roberto Croci joined Microsoft for Startups team with a wide range of knowledge, having previously worked as the Google Regional head for (EMEA) Emerging Markets (Middle East, Turkey, Israel, Russia, Africa) where he helped businesses by building & mentoring teams that could successfully penetrate new markets and ensure sustainable revenue growth.
As a natural born leader, he is passionate about business, people and their growth and has more than 15 years’ experience in various industries – ranging from digital marketing, ad-tech to sales.
He will be integral as the Regional Managing director at Microsoft for startups Middle East, in helping startups achieve their goals and build successful businesses by promoting their tech solutions through digital and social campaigns, opening up the right opportunities for growth, customizing a market plan to maximize joint marketing with Microsoft and providing a targeted industry co-marketing and account planning.
He has specialized in leadership development as a Harvard Business School graduate
and has a proven track-record of creating successful teams and growing businesses in unpredictable environments.
He is passionate about Entrepreneurship and is one of the Partners at Strowlers Ventures, a micro VC-fund which invests in international startups mainly founded by top-tier MBAs.
Motoko has been providing the online marketing services targeting Japan, Asia, and other markets to companies from around the world for since the mid ’90s. Her search marketing consulting services with her extensive knowledge of Asia and Japanese market have been highly valued and made a big impact on some of the world’s popular multi-national brands’ search marketing campaigns.
A number of her articles have been published on industry websites and printed media. She also writes about the Search Marketing and SEO on her blog and other websites. She is a frequent speaker at the search marketing conferences globally and gives seminars and training about International search marketing, In-House SEO, and Enterprise SEO. In 2014, she received the Best Consulting Awards from the US Search Awards.
Judith Lewis is the founder of the deCabbit Consultancy specialising in integrated digital marketing consultancy and execution. She is a specialist integrated online marketer with skills in SEO, PPC, and Social Media Marketing as well as other digital marketing techniques. She has been doing SEO since before it had a name and has worked both in-house and agency-side. She has judged both UK & European Search Awards, is a founding everywoman Modern Muse and is the coordinator for London Girl Geek Dinners.
Having both an in-house and agency background, her clients have included Google, Virgin, NSPCC, Zopa, Slendertone, the Guggenheim, SAP, Amadeus, Blue Cross, & ShareThis. She works from planning through to execution, integrating her digital expertise through research & analysis, design & build through to deployment. Judith writes for the SEO Chicks and Mostly About Chocolate as well as the Huffington Post. She speaks at various conferences around the world and is passionate about teaching and helping businesses large and small (as well as chocolate).
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.
Judges
Nur Anasta Rahmat | CEO | WeaReGroup
Nur Anasta Rahmat (Anas) is a serial SEO practitioner with over 14-years’ experience. Starting his early career at GroupM (WPP Company) to built Search Division in Indonesia. He has wide experience in Search Marketing for multi industries such as Banking, Telco, Insurance, FMCG, and many others, he combines Growth Hacking Methods to enhance his strategy for the clients and consulting several Start-ups such as Nonton.com, Online-Pajak.com, and Acer Indonesia Currently, he founded a Digital Marketing Agency WeaReGroup which consists of WeaReSEO for Search marketing and WeaReSMM for Social Media as Chief Executive Officer He is also building iklanmu.id, start-ups for Advertising Hub as Chief Marketing Officer
Lyndon Barnett | Senior Digital Content and SEO Manager | Vodafone
As the Senior Digital Content and SEO Manager at Vodafone Australia, Lyndon uses digital content strategically to drive quality organic traffic and online conversion. When not optimising websites, he enjoys travelling and has explored more than 75 countries so far.
Richard Brosgill | Managing Director, APAC & RUSSIA | Assembly
Richard drives the strategic leadership at Assembly, a data and technology-driven marketing services company, as Managing Director, APAC & Russia. With over 11 years of industry experience in Asia and Europe, he has built a career in helping clients formulate expansion strategies and scale internationally through digital solutions to succeed within nuanced local landscapes.
Paayal Dharmani | Head of Digital Marketing | Sydney Opera House
Paayal is a digital leader with 15 years of experience in digital marketing, data and ad-tech across industries including e-commerce, technology, media, entertainment, finance and not-for-profits. She currently leads digital marketing for the Sydney Opera House. Paayal is proficient in driving digital transformations encompassing an array of digital channels ( web, social, email marketing & CRM, Search, Display, OOH) and platforms such as DMPs, CDPs, DAM and Ad-tech.
Dhaval Doshi | Managing Director | Location Bank
Dhaval Doshi is a business leader with vast experience in digital marketing, ecommerce and entrepreneurship. Over his 15 year career span, he has worked closely with CXOs to influence key areas of business such as go-to-market strategy, business development, brand-building and technology initiatives. Currently, he consults retail and D2C brands in helping them leverage cutting-edge, AI-based SaaS solutions.
Rodney Ferro | Consultant and Search Engine Optimisation
Rodney’s career started in SEO many moons ago, well before Google. Over the past 22 years he has focused on developing digital strategies for various industries, mainly including services based and NFP organisations. During his time at Clemenger BBDO he worked with some of Australia’s most recognised brands like BMW, Hoyts, Diabetes Victoria, Benetas and Masterfoods mainly on website design / development and online marketing strategies. Rodney soon discovered a gap in the market between client and agency and formed a consultancy practice to help fill this void, born PN Digital. With a strong focus on helping clients maximize their digital budgets, improving communication between agencies / clients and building outcome based strategies Rodney soon began to build a team around him to improve results for their clients. Now with a team of around 18 specialists all professionals in their field, PN Digital is able to provide digital marketing strategy for not-for-profits, crafting practical, evidence-based strategies to help them build an impactful online presence. He has since worked with purpose driven organisations such as Brite Disability Services, FYA, Cool Australia, Social Traders and Childsafe, helping them shine online. Rodney can often be found speaking at not-for-profit conferences and events, presenting about the various challenges around digital marketing, building a team and getting results. Helping not-for-profits deliver their services to the people who need it most.
Mohammadreza Hasanpour | Senior SEO Specialist | Snapp
Mohammadreza began as a digital advertiser, transitioning to a digital marketer one year later. Now, he has over five years of SEO and digital marketing experience in organizations of all sizes and various industries, including the most competitive markets of insurance, health, finance, etc. He currently works as a senior SEO in Snapp Doctor, a digital healthcare service. Although he worked as an SEO freelancer for some time, he has been entirely devoted to in-house SEO for almost three years. His expertise lies in technical SEO and strategy. Lately, he has been practicing SEO automation and ML.
Oliver Hirst | Group Head of SEO | Carro
Oliver Hirst is an SEO expert and consultant with 10+ years experience working in search engine optimization across EMEA and APAC. Having worked for some of the biggest brands in world, including Honda and Porsche, he is currently focused on organic growth for Carro, one of the hottest automotive start-up companies in the APAC region. An SEO all-rounder Oliver has managed SEO teams both in-house and in agency settings to drive growth for businesses in fashion, ecommerce, travel, real estate and automotive industries. He is a big believer in building products which are inherently search-engine friendly and strives to help companies develop organizational excellence in SEO, building teams to execute true enterprise SEO strategies.
Sathyashankara Konila Bhat | Marketing Specialist - SEO | Ericsson | @
Sathyashankara is based in India and has 13+ years of SEO experience. He worked for different global brands including Ecommerce, Healthcare, Software and Telcom. Currently he is working as global SEO Manager for Ericsson, focusing on implementation of SEO best practices & organic traffic growth.
Eugene Korotkevich | International SEO Specialist & Advisor | Group Head of SEO in Central Digital | x-Alibaba, Lazada
Eugene is a Global SEO Consultant, Growth Marketing Advisor with 14+ years of experience across SEA, Australia, Europe and Russia. Working with large E-commerce Unicorns, Startups, and SEO Agencies, he specializes in helping them to shape in-house SEO-Teams, processes, products and long-lasting SEO-strategies from scratch. Eugene is a big fan and advocate of scalable SEO-automation mindset and principles. Former Global SEO Advisor in Alibaba Group, Head of Regional SEO in Lazada (SEA), and Head of Growth in IMWT. Currently building an A-Class Organic Growth Team for Central Digital (Central Group). Co-founder of B2B SEO-Data API services and tools (launching a public product soon!).
Robert Lai | Founder | Kaliber Performance Marketing
Robert Lai is the Founder of Kaliber Performance Marketing based in Singapore. Prior to starting this own agency, Robert has acquired over $400M USD in performance marketing experience was an Award-Winning Consultant at Google New York that consulted the top US marketing agencies and also worked at the top 2 performance marketing agencies as a lead on enterprise clientele such as Samsung, Air New Zealand and Woolworths Group.
Louie Lui | Head of Digital Marketing | PHS HAIRSCIENCE (Asia)
You may recognise Louie as the speaker of Hubspot's Advanced Lead Gen seminar. Louie inspires and leads businesses on how to leverage emerging technologies and digital marketing to stand out from the noise and reach the millennials and gen z consumers. Being in performance marketing with a diverse background across industries, he finds himself loving the start up space. He thrives on the freedom to be creative and agile, and has led multiple start-ups to soaring success, even tiding some through the covid pandemic with agility in strategy. He is currently the Head of Digital and Marketing at PHS Hair Science. With a strong performance marketing foundation, Louie enjoys nothing more than hanging out with fellow marketers who work on success metrics that has business impact. It's easy to spot him - his fashion accessory is a beer on his hand.
Trond Lyngbø | Senior SEO Consultant & Founder | 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.
Mazen Mroueh | HEAD OF DIGITAL & PARTNERSHIPS | ADVISOR
Mazen has been in many leaderships and Senior roles, currently he is the head of Digital & Partnerships at Digicrowns and Advisor at Techcombank, based between the Netherlands and Vietnam. Leading a Big team of experts based in Europe and his responsibilities cover MKT/Media, Martech, CRM, Affiliate, Website/SEO, Digital transformation, and innovation. Mazen overseed Global Digital media strategies, media pitches, digital transformation, and design of the technology ecosystem following the JBP with key suppliers such as Facebook, Google, & Tik-Tok. Next to that, Mazen is an Ambassador and Advisor for many Web 3.0 projects (Fitness, gaming, and others) Before moving to the Netherlands, Mazen worked at the agency side for 6+ years based in Dubai, Singapore, and Beirut. His diverse portfolio covers prominent multinationals such as BlackBerry, Samsung, Emirates, Etihad airlines, and all the Richemont Luxury brands. Mazen won many prestigious digital awards targeting the MENA region and is looking to score more worldwide. Mazen is a big believer in training both the body and the mind to be strong. So next to his professional achievements, he is a world marathoner and Guinness World Record holder, with more than 77 full marathons completed and many ultras.
Alex - Natthaphon Kanjarnavoranun | VP / Lead, Digital Campaign Planning & Execution Manager | Siam Commercial Bank of Thailand
Alex is a highly experienced digital marketer in paid and owned media channels, a content marketer, and SEO expert since 2008. He is a founder of ABACTODAY which is an ed-tech with an online community and e-learning platform for students. He was head of SEO at Lazada Thailand which was one of the largest E-commerce Unicorn in Thailand and South East Asia, before stepping up to SEO Lead position as the first marketing person in Traveloka, another Unicorn in South East Asia and had shown highly successful macro and micro-influencers strategies and proven result in SEO and Social Medias. He also led paid media channels in Thailand and Vietnam for Flight product which is undoubtedly highly competitive in the market. Not only online marketing, but he was also AVP Head of Marketing at Robinson Online under Central Group which led the omnichannel marketing team from digital campaign execution to offline marketing in Robinson department stores, which has 44 branches in Thailand, considered to be the most coverage department stores in Thailand. Currently, he is VP / Lead in Digital Campaign Planning & Execution Manager at SCB bank, focusing on digital banking and transformation under SCBx's vision, which is one of the largest digital tech-savvy public companies or banks in South East Asia. Moreover, he usually provides free public speaking about SEO, digital marketing, and any general topic.
Rejoice Ojiaku | SEO Specialist & Content Strategist | Feedia LTD
Rejoice Ojiaku is an SEO Specialist & Content Strategist, as well as the Co-Founder of B-DigitalUK – a platform for showcasing and empowering black talent in the UK digital marketing scene. Her expertise lies in SEO, Diversity and inclusion, all bolstered by strong personal branding both online and offline.
Dina Okeil | SEO Manager | Majied Al Futaim- Carrefour
Dina Taha has been in the Marketing industry for 20+ years, with a background in both Offline and Online marketing in the MENA region covering different industries like Pharmaceuticals, Education, Retail and finally E-Commerce, Dina is the SEO Manager for Carrefour Egypt one of the biggest retail players in Middle East (Majed Al Futtaim). Dina’s role is to leverage both SEO and ASO activities for Carrefour’s Online presence in terms of website and mobile application. She is a big advocate for data-led decisions and loves digging through numbers. Her regional roles allowed her to get the essence of different markets in Middle East & North Africa. Dina has a passion for training too; she has a number of guided SEO courses on Coursera. Dina believes in continuous learning and stretching her capabilities, so she pursued study MIBA (Major: International Marketing) and graduated from ESLSCA -Paris. In her time off she loves traveling & exploring different cultures and doing adventure activities
Răzvan Paraschiv | Head of APAC Performance Marketing | Stripe
Răzvan Paraschiv is the Head of Performance Marketing for the Asia-Pacific region at Stripe, the highest ranked company in the Forbes Cloud 100 and one of the biggest companies in the fintech industry. Before Stripe, Răzvan was one of the UiPath’s early employees, scaling the marketing team globally from 10 to 200 people and was part of one of the most successful IPOs in 2021. Răzvan has more than 12 years of digital marketing experience working in various global and regional roles. For the past 4 years, Răzvan has helped scale the digital marketing function at UiPath and Stripe in the Asia-Pacific region.
Max Peters | Regional Head of SEO | Hello Health Group
Max has been working in SEO within South East Asia for 13 years and is currently the Regional Head of SEO for Hello Health Group. Hello Health Group is the leading Digital Health company in Asia focusing on the development of medically reviewed, health & wellness information in local languages with over 38 million unique monthly users with over 110,000 pieces of published content in 9 languages. Prior to Hello Health, he was the SEO director at one of Thailand’s leading, award-winning agencies, Primal, serving clients such as national Banks and international supermarkets. Before joining Primal, he headed up SEO for eatigo, a restaurant reservation platform servicing 8 countries across South, East and SouthEast Asia. Before taking the reins at eatigo he managed the SEO for South East Asia’s leading eCommerce platform, Lazada. During this time, he helped them grow to be the largest eCommerce platform in the region with 100 million+ pages, receiving 10s of millions of organic visits per day across 6 countries. Max specialises in multilingual/location SEO at scale for Start-ups, eCommerce, marketplaces and publishers; with a very deep understanding of the technical aspects of SEO.
Dan Petrovic | Managing Director | DEJAN
Dan Petrovic, the managing director of DEJAN, is Australia’s best-known name in the field of search engine optimisation. Dan is a web author, innovator and a highly regarded search industry event speaker.
Pankaj Pilaniwala | Product Manager | Google
Pankaj Pilaniwala is an insightful Product leader who has extensive experience in creating impactful products that can grow businesses and change lives. He's led and built products in Edtech, Fintech, and other customer-facing technologies - including running a startup that gamified learning experience. He understands how to create data-driven products that give customers what they need. He brings together expertise in tech, and people management skills when it comes to creating an aesthetically pleasing tech ecosystem. His product acumen makes him an inspirational leader. He is an expert in his field. He is a true innovator who constantly explores new technologies to create new solutions to provide customers with the best possible experiences and has a proven track record of delivering delightful product experiences.
Plamen Popov | Head of Organic Growth | Acronis
Plamen Popov is an experienced digital marketer & SEO Expert with history of working for internationally renowned brands. He currently is working as Senior SEO Lead in Acronis, world leader in cyber protection & data security company. Plamen joined last year from the marketing team of Management Financial Group, where he lead global marketing strategies for various fin-tech brands inside the holding. Plamen has a genuine interest in marketing and technology and that drives his experience through out consulting start up companies and leading teams in enterprise brands exploring various aspects of marketing activities including PPC, Social Media, Display, Programmatic, App Marketing and SEO. His passion for Search Marketing & SEO always drives him to learn and explore new possibilities of creating better user experiences and results.
Rafay Qureshi | Head of SEO Product | Rain
Meet Rafay Qureshi, A Result-Oriented Online Marketeer and Trainer. Rafay has been into SEO, ASO & all things that come under the organic growth field. Having worked from Start ups to Y combinator to AliBaba to Rocket Internet, Rafay currently Heads the Organic Growth Team at Seera Group. Always striving for Automations, Scalability & Product optimization, Rafay has worked on all sorts of products from e-commerce, B2B, FMCGs, SAAS & Financial Institutions. Rafay is your all-rounder organic growth geek in the e-commerce industry and when he’s not working, he’s playing video games.
Eli Schwartz | Growth Advisor and SEO Strategic Consultant
Eli Schwartz is an SEO expert and consultant with more than a decade of experience driving successful SEO and growth programs for leading B2B and B2C companies. He helps clients like Shutterstock, BlueNile, Quora, Getaround, Mixpanel, and Zendesk build and execute Global SEO strategies that dramatically increase their organic visibility at scale. In the past, Eli led the SEO team at SurveyMonkey, building organic search from nearly zero to one of the largest growth drivers at the company. He helped launched SurveyMonkey’s first APAC office and oversaw international SEO pre- and post-IPO. Prior to SurveyMonkey, he led user acquisition at High Gear Media, pushing the company from 500,000 new users to 6 million every month in just three years. Eli frequently speaks at marketing events across the U.S., Asia, and Europe, and he authors columns published on Search Engine Land, Marketing Land, and Search Engine Journal. His work has been featured on sites ranging from Techcrunch to the Y Combinator blog. He has guest lectured at Duke’s Fuqua School of Business, Singapore’s Civil Service College, and the Founder’s Institute. Eli regularly appears as a guest on top industry podcasts such as Y Combinator, Everybody Hate’s Marketers, and Search Nerds.
Sabiha Shakil | Marketing Consultant
Sabiha is a Marketing Consultant with over 15 years of experience across Asia, Europe, the US, and the Middle East in leadership roles. Sabiha has an international background having developed B2B and B2C marketing strategies across markets and sectors. She has provided business and marketing strategy advice to all kinds of businesses- from Startups to Multi-National Corporations across the globe.
Plamen Tetevensky | Freelance Product Manager, Technical Project Manager (e-commerce), SEO consultant
Plamen Tetevensky is the technical owner, author and creator of the SEO and SEM platforms of the biggest e-commerce player in SEA - Lazada (Alibaba Group). Having a technical background with 25+ years of experience, bringing contribution to Performance Marketing last 7 years with Lazada, operating in 6 countries in SEA with more than 3 billion of pages and 300M customers. Specializes in organic traffic for e-commerce multi-language platforms, high loads, mega-sites. All business ideas come true
Archie Ward | Head Of Search | Entain
Archie Ward has been working at the intersection of marketing and technology for over a decade. He has: started his own agency, worked in-house for major brands, and continues to study business at the postgrad level. Starting out in search marketing in 2011, he has been responsible for managing the Organic Search and Paid Search campaigns for businesses such as the Hard Rock Café, Holiday Inn, and UNICEF. Not much of a public speaker, Archie allocates half of his time to executing on multimillion dollar campaigns, and the rest of the time studying the science, as well as the art, of marketing.
Sophie Westall | Paid Search Manager | Autodesk
Sophie Westall is a Paid Search Manager at a leading SaaS company, Autodesk, for the APJ region. She has 9 years of global experience working in digital marketing across in-house companies, agency side and on a consulting basis. Sophie has a keen interest in digital strategy, automation and connecting brands to their target market. When she is not working, she is travelling the world!