Best Startup
At Best Startup UK we track over 130,000 UK startups and over 500,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top United Kingdom based CEO’ operating in the Search Engine space. If you think a CEO’ is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.co.uk.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Companies House UK, Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Doug Monro
Co-Founder and CEO of Adzuna
Doug was most recently COO of property portal Zoopla. From 2008 he led the growth of the team from 5 to 75 people and the site to number 2 in UK property with 5M visitors a month, organically and through acquisitions. Previously he was MD of Gumtree.com, the UK’s largest classified ads site, where he built the team and business through a fun growth ramp after acquisition by eBay in 2005. Prior to Gumtree, Doug worked for eBay UK, Bain & Company, Unilever and also as an entrepreneur. Doug has a BA in English from Cambridge, an MBA from Kellogg, and hates to admit he is a qualified accountant.
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About Adzuna: Adzuna is a smart search engine for job ads.
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Chris Morton
Co-Founder & CEO of Lyst
Chris Morton is the CEO and cofounder of Lyst (www.lyst.com), a social curation platform for online fashion. Prior to founding Lyst, Chris was an investor at Balderton Capital and Benchmark Capital, focussing on consumer internet; specifically ecommerce, music and games. Chris was also Business Development Manager of the Energy and Materials division at QinetiQ, one of Europe’s leading technology R&D organisations. Chris earned his M.A. in Natural Sciences (Physics and Philosophy) from Cambridge University, 2003, and he is a DERA Scholar.
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About Lyst: Lyst is a global fashion search platform that allows users to browse through thousands of online fashion stores.
Ian O’Rourke
CEO & Founder of Adthena
Ian has been involved in technology businesses and start-ups for over 22 years and has built businesses in Australia, Taiwan, Silicon Valley and the UK. One of these, Oovie, became Australia’s largest DVD kiosk operator before being acquired by Hoyts, the country’s top entertainment group. Another venture, Treeview Estates, has created a 148-home retirement village outside of Sydney. Formerly Ian was based in San Francisco heading Asian sales for Intershop, an eCommerce software start-up. From the early stages through a successful Nasdaq IPO and beyond. He established Intershop’s Asian operations growing sales from zero to US$8m in under three years. Ian has grown Adthena since 2012 to its current position as the premier global provider of competitive intelligence. Recent key achievements include a growth rate up from 50% to greater than 100% and a 92% increase in sales value as well as staff engagement scores exceeding 80%. Ian has also secured significant investment from Candy Crush entrepreneur Mel Morris, who now brings unmatched experience to Adthena’s board as it expands its operations in the US, UK and Australia. Ian likes to foster a culture of great products, getting things done, responsibility, freedom and continuous improvement. While Adthena itself has won many major industry awards, Ian’s entrepreneurial determination has also been recognised with the Developing Entrepreneur Award at the WCIT Enterprise Awards – commonly regarded as the ‘Oscars for technology entrepreneurs’. A double graduate of the University of Queensland, Ian is also a fluent Chinese speaker having lived and studied in Taiwan. He is married with two children and is an avid rock climber.
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About Adthena, Treeview Estates: Adthena is a competitive intelligence solution for search marketers.
Patrick Wehrmann
Group Managing Director & CEO, StepStone UK of StepStone
Patrick Wehrmann joined StepStone 2012 as member of the supervisory board. In February 2014 he was appointed to his current role as Group Managing Director with specific responsibilities for the group businesses (Totaljobsgroup, Jobsite, SAON UK) in the UK, Mergers and Acquisitions and international HR. Before joining StepStone as Group Managing Director, Patrick served as Managing Director of Axel Springer Digital Classifieds. In this position he held several supervisory and advisory board positions in the digital classifieds businesses of Axel Springer worldwide. Previously, he was Commercial Publishing Director / CFO of the BILD Group and the Axel Springer Magazine Division as well as COO/CFO of the Axel Springer Magazine and International Division. In the beginning of his career he held several positions in the French, German, US and UK businesses of Axel Springer. Patrick graduated in Business Administration (Diplom-Kaufmann) at European Business School (EBS) in Oestrich-Winkel. He also studied at the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce in Dijon (France) and at the University of Colorado.
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About StepStone: StepStone is a leading international provider of software and services for the human capital management sector.
Mark Hughes
Co-Founder & CEO of Tutorful
Mark has a Masters and degree in Engineering from Cambridge University and has since worked as a Technology Analyst for one of the largest investment companies in the country. He brings the business mind and technological know-how to our organisation, and, as the creative genius of our team, has an ardent passion for ensuring that Tutorful provides a smooth, slick platform for everyone. Mark loves climbing and can normally be found hanging off mountains in the Peak District.
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About Tutorful: Tutorful is an online education company.
Daniela Cecilio
CEO & Founder of asap54.com
CEO & Founder at ASAP54
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About asap54.com: Asap54 is an app that provides customers information about items of clothing based on photos the customer has submitted.
Tarun Sainani
CEO & Founder of World Around Me
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About World Around Me, WT InfoTech: World Around Me is a local discovery app to help searching local places & services – on the phone camera with augmented reality – anywhere.
Sam Parton
Co-Founder & CEO of Openplay
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About Openplay: OpenPlay is an online platform that allows any sports facility to take online bookings, payments and manage their customers.
Matthew Colebourne
Chief Executive Officer of Searchmetrics
Matthew Colebourne is the Chief Executive Officer at Searchmetrics. He also the Director – New Businesses of Reach plc.
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About Reach plc, Searchmetrics: Searchmetrics is a global provider of search data, software and consulting solutions.
Tim Fendley
CEO of Living Map Company
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About Living Map Company: Living Map transforms people’s experiences of the world’s busiest and most complex places.
Edil Ajibaev
Founder, CEO of picVpic
Edil Ajibaev, the founder of several international startups, has made a significant impact in the tech industry with his AI-based clothing search engine. This innovative tool, leading in product search quality, has accumulated the world’s largest fashion product database, boasting 14 million products.
Edil’s company has pioneered a hybrid system of machine learning, visual search, and manual labelling. This system identifies prevalent fashion phrases and semantically integrates them into a Knowledge Graph, offering superior search quality in the fashion domain.
Edil’s entrepreneurial prowess has been recognized globally, with 7 international startup competition wins in cities such as London, San Francisco, New York, Kyiv, Almaty, Singapore, and Brussels.
In addition to his primary ventures, Edil has co-founded and advised several technology companies, helping them launch and achieve commercial success. He is also an active board member of various startups and organizations shaping the tech ecosystem.
Edil has authored several industry-related articles and is a passionate speaker on Entrepreneurship, Artificial Intelligence, and Leadership. In 2023, he received an award for the most significant contribution to the IT sector at the largest CA IT conference, supported by the US government.
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About picVpic: picVpic offers a search engine that enables its users to compare and rank products from various online stores.
Tim Grice
CEO of Branded3
Tim joined the Branded3 team in 2010, bringing with him five years of experience in developing and executing online marketing strategies for businesses globally. Regularly quoted by the top industry resources, his unique insights have established him as an SEO thought-leader, and he’s regularly invited to speak at major digital conferences around the world. Tim is responsible for overseeing the strategy of the company; the culture and ensuring Branded3 continue to deliver industry leading results for our clients.
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About Branded3: Branded3 is a search agency helping businesses to understand and influence how people find them.
Derek Morgan
CEO & Cofounder of MovieGlu
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About MovieGlu: MovieGlu provides TV Guide style listings for Movie Theater showtimes
