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 SEO 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.
James Henry Blake (Entrepreneur)
CEO and Founder of Vindicta Digital Marketing Agency
James Henry Blake (Born 1993) is a Northern-Irish entrepreneur, award winning businessman/ notable digital marketer and Internet personality. He is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Vindicta Digital – One of the UK’s leading digital marketing companies. James also is the managing director of Black Holdings Group and is an official council member of Forbes Agency Council.
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About Black Holdings Group, Vindicta Digital Marketing Agency: Vindicta Digital provides web design, SEO and digital marketing services.
Roger Llewellyn
Managing Director & Founder & CEO of Kognitio
Llewellyn joined Kognitio in April 2003, having previously been Managing Director of Arelon for two and a half years – a company acquired by Cedar Software. Roger instigated the Management Buy-Out of Cedar and the formation of the Redac Group with Alchemy in May 2002. Roger has started a number of American companies in Europe, including WICAT Europe, where he was Managing Director for 6 years and Vice President USA Sales, and Macromedia, where he was Managing Director Europe for 5 years from start-up to IPO. Roger then took the helm at VINCA Europe for 4 years, until it was purchased by Legato, now EMC. He was also Vice President of Elevon Inc. He trained as an Electronic Engineer before taking his first job for Hewlett Packard. He then held senior positions in Digital Equipment and Prime Computers, before becoming Managing Director of Prime Sweden. After two years in this role Roger took the Managing Director role for Prime in Switzerland.
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About AB Electronics, Kognitio: Kognitio is an in-memory analytical software platform that supports BI, OLAP and analytical applications on large and complex data.
Valery Kurilov
CEO of SE Ranking
Valery Kurilov is the CEO at SE Ranking – a cloud-based platform for SEO and online marketing professionals that provides a complete set of tools for comprehensive site audit, competitor analysis, website ranking, keyword suggestion and grouping, backlink monitoring, automated professional reporting, and much more. Besides standard SEO tools the system offers a set of additional features such as White Label and Marketing Plan aimed at bringing your professional digital services to a whole new level. All on one platform within the same user-friendly interface. SE Ranking offers a 14-day free trial (with no credit cards involved) when you can test-drive all major features with no strings attached. For more information visit: seranking.com SE Ranking offers a variety of unique value propositions to its users which include accurate ranking results for the majority of search engines with advanced keyword analysis, keyword grouping, the ability to show which page of your website is ranking and track Google Local and map results. The users can also check rankings at different intervals ranging from daily checkups to less frequent. The platform is useful for experienced SEO and marketing gurus as well as newbies. For large projects, you can easily monitor unlimited number of keywords, make multiple users/logins and manually edit any changes. With SE Ranking you can complete a variety of projects. For example: • Analyze your website on hundreds of SEO-related parameters and detect all critical errors; • Track, filter and disavow backlinks; • Discover a great set of short-tail and long-tail keywords. • Enhance your marketing activities by following a comprehensive marketing plan suitable for SEO newbies and experienced gurus alike. • Track your social visibility and easily manage all your profiles in one place. • Generate branded reports in manual mode and on a schedule basis. • …and many more!
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About Gismart, HelpCrunch, Intellectsoft, SE Ranking: SE Ranking is a cloud-based platform for SEO and online marketing professionals that provides a complete set of SEO tools.
Russell Glenister
Founder, Investor & CEO of Curation Zone
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About Curation Zone: Curation Zone develops an online platform that analyzes and ranks creative talents.
Simon Schnieders
Founder and CEO of Blue Array Ltd
Simon Schnieders is a search marketing expert focused on the discipline of SEO primarily. His background includes affiliate marketing, SEM, social media and monetizing sites. Schnieders is the founder of the UK’s largest pure-play SEO agency, Blue Array. Previously he was Head of SEO for Zoopla.co.uk, (0-7 years £1billion IPO) driving the websites largest traffic source into double digit million numbers. Between 2009-11 he worked at European Directories, a pan-European IYP and lead generation company & between 2008-9 is recognized for driving the growth surge in search engine traffic for the UK’s number one newspaper website, Mail Online, (dailymail.co.uk) in 2009. Other sites he’s worked on for SEO include, thisismoney.co.uk, metro.co.uk, www.localpeople.co.uk and yell.com.
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About Blue Array Ltd: Blue Array Ltd provides SEO consulgency (consultancy & agency hybrid) services
Steve Timmins
Chief Executive Officer of THE GROOVY GROUP
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About SHOPWITHUSNOW.COM, SOUNDS-MIXES.COM, THE GROOVY GROUP, THE GROOVY GROUP, THEGROOVYGROUP.COM: THE GROOVY GROUP is an online company providing users with the tools to publish multimedia.
Lisa Myers
Founder & CEO of Verve Search
Lisa Myers is the founder and CEO of Verve Search. She has been working in Marketing since 2001 and got “bit” by the “SEOl” bug in 2005, when she was tasked with setting up the Search department at a Integrated Marketing Agency. In 2009 she decided to start her own agency and Verve Search was born. Lisa is a prolific part of the SEO community worldwide and contributes regularly to publications on and offline as well as best practice guides and round tables. She is the founder of Women in Search, SEO-Chicks.com and co-founder of StateofSearch.com. Lisa also speaks frequently at conferences in the search and general digital marketing industry worldwide and is often hired to train internal teams, agency and universities on SEO, Content Marketing and Social.
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About Verve Search: Verve Search operates as a SEO and content marketing agency.
Mark Iremonger
CEO of iCrossing
Mark is the CEO of iCrossing in the UK. Owned by Hearst, iCrossing is the marketing agency for a modern world. Annual agency reviews by Forrester and Gartner have consistently ranked iCrossing as a market leader for the past five years. 2016 saw iCrossing collect the Grand Prix, Best Digital Full Service, Best Strategic Thinking and Best Search at the RAR Awards, the only UK awards based on independent client feedback. 2016 also saw iCrossing announce a strategic partnership and minority acquisition of content marketing agency Mediablaze, and move into a new home on Broadwick Street in the heart of London’s Soho. Mark became CEO in August 2015 following four years as Chief Strategy Officer. He joined from Proximity BBDO where he was Head of Digital and Planning for six years, leading its digital transformation. Before this he was MD of creative shop unit9, voted the 9th most creative agency in the UK by AdAge International, and MD of cross platform marketing start-up Sleeper, that challenged conventional advertising models by bringing the UK’s best TV and digital creatives together. Mark has been a member of the British Council’s Creative Industry’s Advisory Panel, a Vice Chair of BIMA, a member of D&AD, and is a board member of Wired Sussex, a member organisation that promotes digital creativity, innovation and growth.
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About iCrossing: iCrossing is a digital marketing company providing planning and development services for brands and agencies.
Yannis Piperakis-Papadakis
CEO of DOPE Studio
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About DOPE Studio: DOPE creates [D]ata driven, fully [O]ptimized, top [P]erforming, digital [E]xperiences for local & international brands!
Michael Islip
CEO, UK of Digitas
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About Digitas: DigitasLBi operates as a marketing and technology agency that transforms businesses for the digital age.
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.
Rasmus Gustavsen
Founder & iCEO of NerdPeople
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About NerdPeople: DIgital Marketing, Software Development, Web and App development, QA. Our nerds will help you reach your business goals in next to no time!
Julio Taylor
CEO of Hallam
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About BigSpring, Hallam: Hallam is a full service digital marketing agency providing digital campaigns and strategy, SEO, PPC, content marketing, web development.
Myles Anderson
Founder and CEO of BrightLocal
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About BrightLocal: Take the lead in local search.
Al Yong
CEO of Rymote
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About Rymote: Rymote is a technology solution for businesses to connect with the outside world.
Carrie Rose
CEO of Rise at Seven
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About Rise at Seven: The Search-First Creative Agency
Daniel Titterton
Co-Founder, CEO of Intelligent Positioning
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About Intelligent Positioning: Intelligent Positioning is the leading provider of global real-time SEO technology, empowering brands, corporations, marketers, big, small.
Rishi Kapoor
Founder and CEO of Webosaurus
Rishi Kapoor is the founder and CEO of Webosaurus. He is the previous Head of Performance Marketing for Monster UK/IE. He has over 15 years of experience in performance based online advertising and recently has taken up a new role where he is focussed on aligning the recruitment sector to the mainstream consumer advertising sector by making recruiting ROI more transparent & accessible. He has also been actively involved with the Internet Advertising Bureau(IAB) helping formulate the best practices for the online lead generation & performance marketing sector. His B2C specialisation is helping him transform talent acquisition strategy for leading gig economy and forward thinking brands. Close
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About Monster, Webosaurus: Webosaurus is a full service performance marketing agency that transform lead acquisition.
Torben Vejen
Partner, co-CEO of Impact Extend
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About Impact Extend: Impact Extend delivers omni-channel and data-driven solutions that help solve challenges in a strategic approach to get the maximum ROI.
Beau Buckley
CEO & Founder of Revolucion One Digital
Beau Buckley launched Revolucion One early 2016 and is fast becoming one of Australia’s leading digital marketing agencies. With over 10 years experience in digital marketing, Beau’s expertise in SEO, PPC & Web Design has not only helped him build a six-figure business from home, but his strategies have generated his clients more than $3 million dollars in the last two years. He is also the Founder of SEO Services London, strategic marketing partner at Jack Frost Mobile Car Air Conditioning, and marketing partner at MNU Digital. Never shy of a challenge, what separates Beau from other experts, is taking struggling startups and turning them into six and seven figure businesses. Beau has the unique ability to look at a business, know the exact areas which need improvement and put together an actionable game plan the business can implement to generate results…fast. With his wealth of knowledge, years of experience and proven results, Beau has established himself as a true industry expert and a respected figure in the digital marketing space.
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About Revolucion One Digital, SEO Services London, Streemie: Perth Digital Marketing Agency helping businesses generate more leads & sales with SEO, PPC & Web Design Solutions
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.
Elliott King
CEO and co-founder of MintTwist
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About MintTwist: MintTwist is a website design and development company.
Sarah Owen
Founder and CEO of Pumpkin PR
Sarah Owen is the Founder and CEO at Pumpkin PR.
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About Pumpkin PR: Pumpkin PR is an independent PR agency specializing in public relations management for creative, tech, and media industries.
Sarah Owen
Founder and CEO of Pumpkin PR
Sarah Owen is the Founder and CEO at Pumpkin PR.
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About Pumpkin PR: Pumpkin PR is an independent PR agency specializing in public relations management for creative, tech, and media industries.
Rachel Elnaugh
CEO of SourceTV
Rachel ElnaughInvestment Panel Keynote Evolutionary Entrepreneur and former BBCTV’s Dragons’ Den ‘Dragon’Source TV In 2002 she became one of the original stars of BBC’s ‘Dragons’ Den’. But despite a raft of high profile awards and TV fame, her business was forced into administration, before being bought out of administration by Rachel’s fellow Dragons Peter Jones and Theo Paphitis and continuing to trade today. Since then, with her book ‘Business Nightmares’, she’s become one of the world’s leading experts on the entrepreneurship journey. The timing of the book launch in May 2008 could not have been more fortuitous as in September 2008 the global banking system crashed triggering the current recession and many other business meltdowns. ’Business Nightmares‘ has since become the handbook for business survival for many struggling entrepreneurs. Rachel has spoken everywhere from Harvard University, TEDx, The Scottish Parliament, The Oxford Union Debating Society, The British Library and the Conservative Party Conference. Rachel’s latest business venture is SourceTV the new business operating platform for thought leaders, holistic professionals, alternative therapists and coaches which she co-created with Hollywood based TV/Video and Digital Marketing Expert Kevin Stein in 2013. SourceTV is now Rachel’s main business focus. Her latest book ‘Prosperity’ was published on 23 April 2016.
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About SourceTV: Source TV is a new era publishing platform.
Jacki Vause
Founder and CEO of dimoso
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About dimoso: It’s all changing. In the new world of apps, tablets and social media, the old media world has been turned on its head.
