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 Social Media Marketing 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.
Dhruv Ghulati
Co-Founder and CEO of Factmata
Dhruv holds a Distinction in Computer Science and Machine Learning from University College London, and a 1st Class BSc in Economics from the LSE. He was a product manager and co-founder of two London based machine intelligence startups, and is an Entrepreneur First alum and Forbes 30 Under 30 leader in Technology. He wrote his thesis in cost-sensitive classification and distant supervision for statistical claim detection.
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About Factmata: Factmata is an artificial intelligence company for automated content understanding..
Dylan Collins
Co-Founder and CEO of SuperAwesome
Dylan Collins is one of Europe’s most experienced digital media entrepreneurs, focusing on games, kids entertainment and the technology which underpins them. He is CEO of SuperAwesome, the #1 kid-safe brand engagement platform. SuperAwesome works with the biggest kids entertainment brands in the world including Disney, Hasbro, Warner Bros and Activision ensuring they connect safely with over a quarter of a billion kids each month. An active investor and advisor across both kids media and technology companies, he is Venture Partner with Hoxton Ventures and sits on the board of the UK’s top-rated marketing technology agency, Potato and Brown Bag Films, Europe’s leading kids animation studio. Previously Collins founded Jolt Online Gaming which became one of the pioneering social games publishers in Europe. Jolt was acquired by GameStop (NYSE: GME), the largest video games retailer in the world in 2009 to spearhead their digital media strategy. As founder and CEO of DemonWare in 2003, he led the company to become the leading online games technology firm in the global console games market. In 2007, DemonWare was acquired by Activision Blizzard (NYSE: ATVI), the world’s biggest video games publisher and is now the multiplayer backbone of the billion-dollar Call of Duty franchise.
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About Box of Awesome, brown bag films, Hoxton Ventures, Potato, SuperAwesome: SuperAwesome offers kid-safe tools and technology for the children’s digital media ecosystem.
Muayyad Shehadeh
Co-Founder and CEO of Uhive
Over 25 years of experience, CEO of Genie9, BigMIND and UHIVE A long and broad experience in machine learning algorithms and A.I. systems.Created BigMIND cloud which was the first cloud solution to utilise cold and hot storage, and integrate A.I, Muayyad has a degree in Architecture. He is well known as a Windows C++/WIN API Guru with deep conceptual thinking; which is an ability he developed and enhanced through his Architecture degree Spent last 5 years working on UHive Social Network Idea
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About Uhive, Zoolz: Uhive is a social network that lets users socialize, interact, and find people across the world while earning its own digital currency.
Norm Johnston
CEO of Unruly
Norm Johnston is Chief Digital Officer at MindShare.
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About MindShare, Unruly: Unruly is an advertising technology company that gets videos watched, tracked, and shared across the Open Web.
David Kershaw
Co-Founder ,CEO & Exec Director of M&C Saatchi
David Kershaw is a founding director of M&C Saatchi. He joined Saatchi & Saatchi in 1982 after obtaining an MBA at London Business School. He became managing director in 1990 and was made chairman and chief executive of the UK agency in 1994.
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About M&C Saatchi: M&C Saatchi Group is a creative company that connects specialist expertise, fuelled by data and technology.
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!
Martin Adams
Co-Founder & CEO of Codec
Martin is an international keynote speaker on innovation, artificial intelligence and disruptive technologies, and the Founder and CEO of Codec.ai. Codec.ai has raised millions & uses artificial intelligence to identify new target audiences and understand what content and products they want to consume, all before brands have to guess. Codec won ‘the Best Artificial Intelligence Product in Marketing’ award at CognitionX and has been named one of the ‘Hottest AI Businesses in Europe’ by TechCrunch. Martin has been recognised as one of the UK’s Top 100 Entrepreneurs by Maserati and as an innovation advisor he has worked with some of the most high-profile individuals and organisations in the world on how to use technology to be more innovative and connect more deeply with real people- including companies like Pfizer and Red Bull and governmental organisations like the Royal Marines. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School, and the Co-Founder of the Social Media Unit @ UCL and the Digital Leadership Council.
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About Ambient Tone, Codec, CognitionX, Digital Leadership Council, London Speaker Bureau, University College London (UCL): We help brands to discover and tap in to the pockets of culture that drive growth. Powered by award-winning AI.
Gilbert Corrales
Co-Founder & CEO of Leaf
Gilbert Corrales (born December 3rd, 1982 in Heredia, Costa Rica) is a strategist, entrepreneur and professor. Corrales attended Costa Rica Institute of Technology (BE Computer Science, 2004) and the University of Science and Technology in South Korea (MSc Human Computer Interaction, 2010), where he helped coordinate the first [International Augmented Reality Standards](http://www.perey.com/ARStandardsMeeting.html) meeting. Since 2002, Gilbert’s work has made high profile companies like Unisys, Intel, Microsoft and world-class interactive agency Schematic achieve success in crafting new and exiting experiences. In 2009, Gilbert joined the Imaging Media Center at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology as a Research Scientist, where both Discovr Korea and the Discovr Places’ Platform saw the light of day as part of his Masters Thesis. Gilbert’s current focus is in crafting the best social experiences for travelers around the world on top of the [Discovr Places’](http://www.discovr.net) Platform, helping people make the most of their trips on the go, wherever they go.
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About Discovr Places, Leaf: Leaf, previously Leaf Grow, is a tech company that provides end-to-end performance marketing services for ambitious eCommerce businesses.
Jenny Tsai
Founder & CEO of Wearisma
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About Wearisma: Wearisma is a premium influencer marketing solution for brands, agencies & influencers.
Alessandra Di Lorenzo
CEO & Founder of LM Forward
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About LM Forward: LM Forward is a marketing services company that offers media and content activations.
Paola Marinone
Founder & CEO of BuzzMyVideos
Founder & CEO at BuzzMyVideos.
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About Blackbox, BuzzMyVideos, TechItalia:Lab: BuzzMyVideos is leading martech company that drives hyper-growth & new revenue from and on YouTube.
Julian M. Baladurage
Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of MBJ LONDON
Julian Baladurage joined MBJ LONDON as CEO & Co-founder in 2011.
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About Forbes New York Business Council, MBJ LONDON: MBJ LONDON is a web and app development company offering Website as a Service.
Tomas Vohradnik
CEO of NEARBER
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About NEARBER: App which tracks your position via Google Maps API and shows you everything that’s happening nearby.
Matt Wheeler
CEO of Driftrock
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About Driftrock: Driftrock helps brands find their audience online, using data from around the web to power better targeted, more timely Social Media Ads.
Nadeem Azam
CEO of Azam Marketing
Nadeem Azam has been at the cutting-edge of entrepreneurship for nearly forty years and generated over £1 billion in sales for clients during his illustrious career. He is also an experienced writer, journalist and sub-Editor, having had his work published in local and national press in the UK as well as several magazines and academic journals. His fiction and non-fiction is studied in schools and universities in the United States, Germany and other countries. Nadeem Azam founded Azam Marketing, an international, full-service digital marketing and design agency in 1997. The company is headquartered in Covent Garden, central London and its corporate website is at https://www.azam.net . Nadeem had been a successful computer programmer as far back as the 1980s in his childhood, and had also enjoyed an acclaimed career as a writer and sub-editor at various British newspapers, magazines and journals in the 1990s. Nadeem foresaw the decline of ‘old media’ and decided to pioneer an internet business. Azam Marketing specialise in search, email, social media and performance marketing, as well as web design, business consulting and corporate training. The multi-award-winning agency’s clients range from the world’s largest corporations such as Disney, Coca-Cola, Hilton, Warner Bros., Nike, Fitness First and BT, to small and medium size companies. Nadeem is often invited to be interviewed on television and radio stations around the world to share his expertise and is highly-rated public speaker.
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About Azam Marketing, Azam Marketing, Azam Marketing: Azam Marketing is a full-service digital marketing and design agency which focuses on results.
Patrick Charlton
Co-Founder & CEO of Buzz Radar
Patrick is a social marketing and digital specialist, with a track record of creating a wide range of award-winning campaigns and projects for some of the world’s most exciting brands. He is co-founder of Buzz Radar, an industry leader in capturing and visualising real-time data. Buzz Radar makes live data of all types collaborative, easy to understand and shareable for everyone. He works with some of the world’s largest events, brands and retail spaces, including Twitter, Samsung, Nike, Google, adidas, Intel, Skype, Marks And Spencer, IBM, Red Bull and Adobe, helping them create a culture of listening and marketing in the moment. Over his career, Patrick has been lucky enough to lead major-ground breaking projects on multiple global social engagement campaigns, providing leadership, strategy, production savvy, creative direction and client management in a fast-paced, demanding environment with an online audience in the tens of millions.
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About Buzz Radar: Buzz Radar is an industry leader in making data, insightful, accessible and actionable
Viktor Nyics
CEO of VixT
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About VixT: VixT – turns your texts into a video mashup! It’s better than GIF. Best friend of the creative content marketer. iOS / Android + chatbots
Peter Lancaster
CEO of Documobi
Peter Lancaster, the CEO and Group’s visionary, heads the conceptual development of its products. A world-renowned Graphics professional, he was Managing Director of St Ives GM (the digital arm of Europe’s largest printer) then, for seven years, was an independent consultant working for HP, Kodak, Fuji-Xerox and Canon on all things online printing. Realising the potential of print to mobile, he went to the US in 2011 to do R&D, lodge the Patent and, upon his return to the UK, set up the Group.
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About Documobi: Documobi is a mobile solution that enables businesses to conduct personalized advertising campaigns.
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.
Joe Levi
CEO & Co-founder of Noise Media
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About Noise Media: Noise Media is an award winning social-first media agency that helps brands scale to universal heights.
Damian Dutton
CEO (co-founder) of BeeLiked Media Ltd
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About BeeLiked Media Ltd: An interactive content platform for brands to engage their digital audience, build first-party data and drive sales
Javier Burón
Co-Founder & CEO of Audiense
Javier Burón is a dedicated internet enthusiast with wide experience in social media and has spoken at many events across Europe. Entrepreneur by nature, he has gained in-depth knowledge in this area over the last five years thanks to numerous successful consulting projects, and designing and developing a wide variety of social apps (e24apps.com). Javier Burón has a Masters in Information Systems, Computing Engineering and is a recent past lecturer at Córdoba University.
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About Audiense: Audiense is a develops delivering unique consumer insight and engagement capabilities to many of the world’s biggest brands and agencies.
Michael Litman
CEO, Co-founder, Burst Insights of Burst Insights
Hello, I’m Michael, Co-founder and CEO of Burst (http://www.weareburst.com) and formerly Founder of Brandsonvine (http://www.brandsonvine.com). I’m a co-author of Share This Too: More Social Media Solutions for PR Professionals (Wiley, August 2013), which topped the Amazon best sellers list even before launch. My chapter is on ‘Content Curation’. I’ve previously worked at some of the top advertising and PR agencies in the country including Poke, Dare and Splendid. I’ve also written for, been interviewed or featured in: Mashable, BBC, FT.com, The Independent, The Telegraph, .NET magazine, CNet, Adverblog, The Kernel, The Wall, Read Write Web, eConsultancy, Trendspotting, Campaign, Communicate Magazine, PR Week and Project 10. For the extended version, check out https://plus.google.com/u/0/105356639785432213951/about A few highlights: • #21 in the ’30 Most Creative Advertising People Under 30′ by Business Insider • Shortlisted for the Don’t Panic #somecomms Mark Hanson Award “to recognise the brightest and most promising social media communicator under 30 years old” • #3 in the “Top 20 Most Influential Marketing Bloggers in the UK” by AdAge Specialties: digital media, online PR, social platforms, emerging technology, brand conversations, content curation, innovation, writing
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About Burst Insights: Burst Insights is a short-form video discovery engine that tracks brands and influencer video content on Instagram, Twitter Video, and Vine.
Steve Wright
Founder & CEO of Captini
Steve Wright is the Founder & CEO at Captini.
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About Captini: Captini transforms Guest WiFi networks into an automated marketing service that increases customer return rates.
Chris Ferguson
CEO of iPay Affiliates
Chris Ferguson is FX and CFD’s News Editor and owns iPay Affiliates, a London based web affiliation firm.
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About iPay Affiliates: iPay Affiliates is one of the fastest growing open market, fully transparent, self-service networks
Chris Ferguson
CEO of iPay Affiliates
Chris Ferguson is FX and CFD’s News Editor and owns iPay Affiliates, a London based web affiliation firm.
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About iPay Affiliates: iPay Affiliates is one of the fastest growing open market, fully transparent, self-service networks
Matt Lowe
CEO and founder of performance.io
Networker, broker, influencer, and experienced digital ambassador and communications advocate, Matt is passionate about accelerating growth and innovation in healthcare through use of new technologies and modern day communications disciplines. He provides high-end consultancy to many C-suite executives and fortune 500 healthcare companies, building integrated brand engagement strategies on forensic insights that deliver measurable outcomes impacting the lives of millions. A judge on several awards networks, a regular contributor to many leading publications and regular keynote speaker he also provides advice for a number of start-ups, is a faculty member at BartsXMedicine and sits on the Advisory Board for Webit Health, the single most influential digital economy, tech, policy & startup event for Europe in 2018. Having joined the Board of an integrated network group, in 2015 he founded and launched the world’s first health specialist SEO and SEM company out of London and NY. Passionate about mental wellness, people and productivity he is a Board member for the Hatch supported PeaceLove Foundation, and through his Marketing agency he provides pro bono solutions to ensure as many people as possible help create peace of mind. With faith in people, technology and the marriage of the two, Matt also advises for Artmatr, a pioneering company that are developing next level technologies that sit at the nexus of art, engineering and robotics. Artmatr have several labs and incubators that allow engineers and artists to collaborate to find new solutions in health, art and engineering that are the driving force for the next great crossover of our time, (digital art and physical art) and are helping people with disabilities to express their creativity through technology.
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About performance.io: performance.io is a performance marketing agency focused on health & tech.
Giovanbattista Cimmino
CEO and Founder of SocialAsk
Giovanbattista Cimmino is an entrepreneur in the hospitality and digital industry. CEO and founder of the London-based social media agency SocialAsk, founder of the Remodels agency and creator of the Model Restaurant platform. Giovanbattista is the co-founder of Kowa Restaurant and Osteria Romana.
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About Entrepreneur.com, SocialAsk: SocialAsk is a London-based social media agency specialized in social media marketing and online reputation management.
Fahim Pour
CEO and Co-founder of Pukket
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About Pukket: Enabling brands to turn their customers into a powerful community of loyal brand advocates on social media
Fahim Pour
CEO and Co-founder of Pukket
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About Pukket: Enabling brands to turn their customers into a powerful community of loyal brand advocates on social media
William Soulier
CEO of Talent Village
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About Talent Village: Influencer Marketing Platform Dedicated To Agency Signed Talent On Instagram.
Toni Hopponen
Chief Executive Officer of Flockler
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About Flockler: The Best Social Aggregator & Social Website Builder
