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.
The panel consisted of industry leaders and experts from Australia, as well as those who have an international presence in the search industry.
The following list of judges is not complete, it will be updated as we receive other confirmations.
Harsh Agrawal | Founder | Shoutmeloud
Harsh Agrawal is the Fountainhead and CEO of ShoutMeLoud, an award-winning blog that aims at helping people be their own boss. Harsh has helped hundreds of individuals and small businesses to increase their online visibility and integrate business with his blog. He has partnered with innumerable international companies to promote their online businesses and is one of the most active members on the Indian blogging scene. He has also featured as a speaker at numerous blogging and technology events across the world such as the WordCamp (Delhi and Gujarat) and Affiliate Summit West (Las Vegas).
Daniel Alexander | Senior Manager Digital Communications | NRMA
Daniel heads up digital content, social media and SEO at the NRMA. Passionate about helping people, he takes a customer lead approach in creating digital content experiences that inspire meaningful engagement and build brand loyalty. Daniel is inspired by the power of digital communications to create positive change.
Lyndon Barnett | Senior Digital Content and SEO Manager | Vodafone Australia
Lyndon currently manages digital content and search engine optimisation for Vodafone Australia. He devises content and search strategies that drive online, in-store and over the phone conversions. He’s previously worked for Flight Centre, Groupon and the ABC.
Catherine Barr | Global expansion brand marketing | HBO Max
Catherine leads the brand expansion and non-US launches of HBO Max around the world. Over the past two years, she and her teams have launched the streaming brand into over 60 territories internationally. Prior to Warner Bros Discovery, she led the relaunch of Shahid, the Arabic-speaking world’s biggest streaming service, and was also GM of FutureBrand Southeast Asia.
Alli Berry | Director of SEO & Content Strategy | The Motley Fool
Alli Berry is the Senior Director of Content Marketing at the Arena Group. For the last 11 years, she has helped businesses build a successful SEO-focused content strategy in industries including finance, education, automotive, and retail. She was named to the 2019 Top 10 Women in Content Marketing list by Masthead Media and Inc. Magazine during her tenure as SEO Director at the Motley Fool. Her recent speaking engagements include SMX Create, Content Marketing World, and Semrush Summer Jam.
Jennifer Bradley | Founder | Bradley Consulting LLC
Jennifer is a strategic digital growth leader and consultant with over 15 years of experience in enhancing profitability by creating revenue generating digital properties. She has worked with several of the top companies in the world such as Google and Microsoft helping them to refine their web based search strategies. She is especially savvy at building innovative solutions, establishing online brand preference, identifying growth opportunities and applying the most current optimization techniques to enhance online visibility while grabbing user attention to stand out in an ever-evolving and highly competitive marketplace. Jennifer also owns Bradley Consulting, a full service digital agency focused on organic growth methods.
Jeremy Cabral | COO | Finder | @FINDER
Jeremy is part of the founding team and the COO of Finder. Having successfully grown finder.com.au into Australia's largest comparison website, Finder is now expanding globally with the goal of becoming the world's largest comparison platform. Together with his incredible team of talented digital marketing professionals Jeremy have helped improve financial literacy in Australia and assisted millions of people in Australia to make better informed decisions.
Crystal Carter | Head of SEO Comms | Wix
Crystal Carter the Head of SEO Communications at Wix. She is an SEO & Digital Marketing professional with over 15 years experience working with SEO and Marketing clients around the world like Disney, McDonalds, Tomy and more. As an SEO, she identifies and implements tactics that help businesses optimise digital activity, drive sales, engagement and growth online. She has contributed to events, webinars, and publications from Google Search Central, Brighton SEO, Moz, Whitespark Local Search Summit, Semrush, SMX, Search Engine Land, DeepCrawl, Women in Tech SEO and more.
Daniel Cheung | Search Engine Optimization Manager | Optus | @Optus
Daniel is relatively new to enterprise SEO, having spent 3.5 years learning SEO agency-side looking after Australia's biggest insurer and one of Australia's largest banks. Starting as a SEO junior (knowing nothing at all!), he quickly realised open communication and empathy were core to client retention. By the end of his tenure as Team Lead, his greatest achievement was creating a series of 30+ Loom videos for onboarding new hires so that they wouldn't need to feel like he did when he first started. He now leads organic growth at Optus Smart Spaces. As a strong advocate of DE&I, Daniel produces a weekly podcast called Dreading Sundays where he actively asks people from minority communities to share how they have grown in their careers so that others who look like them, feel like them, and sound like them may seek inspiration to do the same.
Brodie Clark | Independent SEO Consultant | Brodie Clark Consulting
Brodie Clark is one of Australia's best-known names in Search Engine Optimisation, offering advanced SEO consulting for global brands such as Tripadvisor, Envato, Airtasker, and more. As a previous winner of the Young Search Professional of the Year award, Brodie is eager to be involved in the judging panel to find the next generation of Australian SEO talent.
Miki Clarke | Head of Digital Performance | Allianz Australia | @allianz_au
Miki is heading up Allianz’s Digital Media team and managing investment across digital / performance based channels. Previously spent 6.5 years at MEC Australia (now known as Wavemaker) heading up their SEO and CRO team and prior to that the Performance team, responsible for both paid and organic search and paid social.
Alana Cordukes | Head of Marketing (Individual Giving) | UNICEF Australia
Alana has almost a decade of marketing experience in the non-profit sector. She currently leads the marketing team at UNICEF Australia, inspiring everyday Australians to support and protect the world's most vulnerable children. Alana is passionate about using creativity and evidence-based decision-making to ensure every dollar invested in marketing drives measurable impact.
Matt Depoortere | Senior SEM Specialist | PET CIRCLE
Matt Depoortere is an experienced SEM Specialist who recently joined the Pet Circle team to lead the Paid Search strategy. He's got many years of experience, working in both agency and client-side roles across multiple competitive verticals, such as retail and travel. After living in Amsterdam for 5 years and working for brands such as Coolblue, TUI and Google, he moved to Australia and worked as a Performance Marketing Consultant for an e-commerce agency and now joined the Pet Circle team. Matt is most passionate about the combination of data, marketing and automation.
Shelly Fagin | Director SEO | Credit Karma
Shelly is the Director, Growth Marketing SEO at Credit Karma, an Intuit Company leading organic strategy for both CreditKarma.com & Mint. She was previously a Sr SEO Product Manager at Cox Automotive, which powers Autotrader and KBB.com where her job mainly focused on all of the content which is managed on WordPress VIP for both brands. Shelly is also a proud Brand Ambassador for powerhouse SEO Tool company, Semrush, and a former Community Manager starting up their Facebook Community- Semrush Allstars. She first started working in web development over 20 years ago, and shortly after her fascination with SEO began. Shelly is a coder at heart, enjoys developing WordPress sites and specializes in Technical SEO and auditing.
Sam Ficek | International SEO Lead | Canva
Sam leads international SEO at Canva, managing a team of SEO specialists in 18 countries to achieve the company mission of "empowering the world to design". With ten years of in-house and agency experience, across most digital marketing channels, Sam provides an invaluable broader perspective on SEO challenges.
Amin Foda | Director, Marketing Infrastructure | Monash University
Amin Foda is the Director, Marketing Infrastructure at Monash University. He is responsible for enhancing Monash’s Audience Communication Experience, defining the MarTech, Automation, web and email ecosystem, while advancing the University’s use of marketing data through data science, analytics and research to optimise performance across channels. Amin has over 15 years experience within various industries, helping them deliver effective marketing, develop robust audience experiences and improve return on relationships using data-driven tactics.
Johann Godey | Director | Vistaprint
Johann discovered the power of Search marketing in 2002 and has never looked back. Joining a multilingual search marketing company in 2003 gave him exposure to Organic, Paid and Social working for international websites. In January 2008 Johann joined Google as Search Quality Manager in Dublin, Ireland to improve the quality of Google's organic results, initially in EMEA and eventually globally. After 5 and a half years of fun work Johann decided to experience the last big part of the industry still missing (after in house, agency & SE), leading an Enterprise Search program for Vistaprint, the Global leader in mass customisation.
Motoko Hunt | President, International Search Marketing Consultant | AJPR
Since establishing AJPR in 1998, Motoko Hunt has been providing online marketing services to various companies around the world. Her extensive knowledge of Asia and Japanese markets proves to be highly valuable as her consulting services have made a significant impact on global marketing campaigns for some of the world’s most popular multinational brands. Besides being published in industry websites and printed media, Motoko is a frequent speaker at global search marketing conferences, giving seminars and training about topics on International Search Marketing.
Shefali Joshi | Digital Optimisation Specialist | BankVic | ex- MONASH UNIVERSITY | @MonashUni
Shefali leads the search engine optimisation for Monash University (largest University in Australia - 70,000+ student enrollments across 6 locations in Australia, Malaysia, Italy, India and China). She provides strategic advice and insights to business areas across faculties and international markets in reviewing their web and content strategy, with a strong track record of delivering improved online presence. She has 16 years of work experience specialising in the area of digital marketing, web development and optimisation. She has previously worked for companies like ANZ, Intelledox and BeyondBlue. Her interests range from web optimisation, data analysis and understanding the complexities of the mind.
Parmiss Kia | SEO Manager | Kmart
Parmiss is a strategic leader and data-driven Digital Marketer who has successfully developed and executed Omnichannel digital Marketing strategy for a number of Australian & international brands including Kmart, Country Road Group, REA Group and Royal Canin ANZ. Parmiss is currently the SEO Manager at Kmart Australia and New Zealand, developing a world class SEO strategy driving organic search for Kmart. She has successfully developed an innovative data-driven SEO strategy by coupling strategic marketing and Search Engine Optimisation through consumer behaviour insight and customer experience lens, She is passionate for optimising online channels developing brand strategy in order to maximise business growth via online channels, increase brand exposure and improve brand positioning, through her innovative approach, research and analysis. Her love for digital marketing and SEO, inspired many people. She conducted SEO training and seminars for staffs at every company she worked for including Kmart to inspire team members coming from any background understanding the power of digital and search.
Phil LEAHY | Founder | MedCart Marketplace | ex- RETAIL GLOBAL | @RetailGlobalAU
Phil has a deep passion for creating connections. That’s why he ended up founding two major annual conferences for digital retailers on opposite sides of the world—Australia’s Retail Global and the United States’ Retail Global conference. Hosting conferences allows him to bring creative minds from around the world together to share their stories. And when they do, meaningful change happens.
JUDITH LEWIS | Founder | DECABBIT | @decabbit
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.
Trond Lyngbo | Senior SEO Consultant & Founder | Search Planet AS
Trond Lyngbø is the founder of Search Planet AS, an SEO consulting company in Oslo, Norway. He is an internationally recognized expert in search engine optimization (SEO), the co-author of the book "Google It: Total Information Awareness", and columnist at Search Engine Land. He has been a judge for European Search Awards, Global Digital Marketing Excellence Awards and Global Marketing Awards. Currently researching: The State of E-Commerce SEO in the Nordics (2021).
Holly Miller Anderson | Lead SEO Product Manager, North America eCommerce Experience | Under Armour
An experienced SEO and marketing strategist with in-house experience from agency to enterprise brands, Holly has more than a decade of broad, digital marketing skill that includes marketing films, managing events, and growing SEO as an acquisition channel. Fun fact: Holly studied film and marketing abroad at Bond University in Queensland, Australia.
Nik Ranger | Senior Technical SEO Specialist | Dejan Marketing
Nik Ranger is an award winning Senior Technical SEO Specialist at Dejan Marketing and the head of SEO Collective Australia, an educational organisation for marketing teams that shares the latest in search trends, algorithm updates and transformative strategies. Winner of SEMrush best agency in Australia, APAC and at the Global Search Awards. Published in two books, SEO in 2022 by Majestic and SEO Trends 2022, According to 44 Experts by Search Engine Journal, brand ambassador for Rank Ranger and #87 of 202 Top SEO Experts You Should Be Following by Search Engine Journal.
Julian Roben | SEO Specialist (AU) | Flight Centre Australia | @flightcentreAU
Passionate about data-led strategy that creates last-click success for both brands and customers, Julian has over 7 years of experience in SEO. Having worked across a range of industries, he is currently the SEO specialist for the Australian arm of Flight Centre. A part of the global SEO team, he is responsible for organic search success as the brand undergoes a digital overhaul, to cement itself as the authority on travel and tourism as we navigate out of the pandemic.
John Shehata | Global VP | Condé Nast | @condenast
John Shehata is Global Vice President of Audience Development Strategy & Partnerships at Condé Nast overseeing SEO, Social Media Strategy, Audio Growth, Partnerships and Innovation for all Condé Nast global brands (Wired, Epicurious, Vanity Fair, Vogue, The New Yorker, GQ, etc.). John has 24+ years of experience in the digital marketing space working with top national brands and fortune 500 companies.