Judges

Neil Hardy | Head Of Society Ecommerce | Midcounties Coop

Involved in commercial, digital and online since 1993. With vast experience in commercial partnerships, product sourcing, online strategy, large travel operations , project management and digital marketing.

Jayesh Jain | SEO & ASO Account Manager | Alshaya Group

Jayesh is a knowledgeable SEO & ASO specialist for Alshaya Group in the MENA region. He has a wide array of digital experience having worked in both global brand agencies and client-side roles. He is a strategy-driven and passionate SEO & ASO expert, with a strong track record of driving search growth for huge brands in highly competitive sectors. He has been associated to improve organic visibility for the world's popular brands like H&M, Victoria’s Secret, Foot Locker, The Body Shop, Thomas Cook, Acer, Carrefour, etc. He started his career in India followed by Taiwan and now in the UAE. He lives and breathes all things SEO + ASO and is passionate about bridging collaboration between SEOs, Content team, and website developers. Jayesh has completed Bachelor’s in Mass Media and holds an MBA degree in Marketing.

Lada Kalashnickova | Head of SEO | COPYBET EU LTD

Lada has worked in digital marketing since 2003. She specializes in all aspects of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), with a focus on technical SEO, multilingual search and mobile optimization. Her clients have included Starco, Action-MCFR, and Artec 3D. Lada worked as a Global Head of SEO in Acronis, then she was a Head of SEO at SEMRush. Lada now works as the Head of SEO/ASO in CopyBet EU Ltd, the first social betting platform founded in 2015. CopyBet is a fast-growing tech company, focused on providing the best experience for their customers while following the principles of Transparency and Fair Trade. Lada enjoys lifetime studying; most recently on topics around data, Artificial Intelligence, and Machine Learning. Her favorite tools are Excel, GWT, GA, Yandex Metrica and brains. Outside of work, she enjoys travelling, yoga, and Japanese Art. Definitely a cat person.

Jaaved Khatree | Head of Digital | PPMG

Jaaved first went online in the mid 90s and has been connected ever since. An SEO competition in 2004 piqued his interest in Search Marketing and after dabbling in PPC and eventually moving into SEO, he hasn’t looked back. Jaaved was a founding staff member of Dejan SEO, a renowned Australian SEO agency and has served hundreds of clients in his native Australia, New Zealand and across the MENA region. In his 15+ years in Search, he’s worked across just about every industry with notable brands such as Etihad Airways, Atlantis The Palm Dubai, Fuji Xerox Australia, The Property Finder Group (MENA) as well as hundreds of small businesses from around the world. He is currently the Head of Digital at PPMG, a diverse media group operating across a multitude of vertical sectors such as Content, Brand, Design, Digital Development, Ecommerce, FinTech, EdTech and FitTech. Constantly curious, with an insatiable appetite for all things digital, Jaaved is always looking for answers which is why he excels in Search.

Krzysztof Marzec | CEO | DevaGroup

CEO at DevaGroup, an agency with the title of Google Premier Partner and Google Rising Star. SEO, Google Ads & Analytics Trainer. Trained the best agencies and media houses directly for Google. Author of two books, over hundreds of articles and highly rated online courses. Lecturer at Jagiellonian University and the Tischner European University. Speaker at dozens of conferences, winning best presentation and audience awards. Founder and organizer of semKRK, barcamp gathering up to 500 participants of the SEM industry. He worked for such brands as Allegro.pl, Neo24, Shoper.pl, Conrad.pl, Interia.pl, RMF Group and Bauer Publishing. 2020 winner at Ads & Analytics day at the largest marketing event in Poland - I Love Marketing conference.

Heba Medoukh | SEO Manager | Namshi

A highly passionate & enthusiastic SEO Expert playing a prominent role in driving huge e-commerce businesses growth and success. Heba highly believes in the power of SEO more than ever, as she has seen the industry constantly evolve & change especially in the past couple of years, which makes it harder to remain consistent without staying up to date & improving your strategy according to the new trends & competition. She has planned the overall SEO strategies including technical health, international & local SEO, keyword strategy, content marketing, backlink profile building as well as ASO for over 20 of the biggest online retailers in different markets mainly in the MENA region to boost user engagement & traffic. Throughout her years of experience, she managed to help multinational brands maximise their online visibility & conversions organically in a very aggressive & competitive industry & during challenging times where her involvement starts from the early pre-launching stages to reaching a stable position online & achieving the desired goals.

Jason Meininger | SEO Product Manager | StepStone UK

This is Jason’s third time judging the MENA Search Awards. Jason has been online since before browsers had graphics, and for well over a decade has been a core part of the on-and off-site SEO programmes at Totaljobs Group and StepStone, Europe’s leading family of online recruitment classified sites. With a background in web design, development, marketing, and project management, his primary focus is scalable, data-led technical optimisation tactics, improving reach and efficiency to drive organic traffic and maximise engagement across a portfolio of large-scale generalist and smaller specialist recruitment domains including Totaljobs.com, Jobsite.co.uk, and Stepstone brands across continental Europe. He also maintains a parallel career in London as a theatrical producer and lighting designer.

Sandeep Poduval | Head of Marketing | Commerical Bank of Dubai

With over 25 years of Marketing & Communications experience, Sandeep has helped build successful brands across a diverse spectrum of industries spanning India and Middle East markets. Sandeep has extensive Banking experience, having worked for 11 years at Union National Bank, as SVP & Head of Corporate Communications and over 3 years at Commercial Bank of Dubai as the Head of Marketing. Sandeep has also held senior positions in Marketing at multinational companies like Warner Lambert India and Tiffany Foods, Dubai and has helped build global brands across FMCG, Foods, Aviation, Healthcare, and Retail and Service industries through his advertising career. He has also dabbled with entrepreneurship running a mid-sized advertising agency and a media agency and a Digital Marketing Training consultancy in Dubai for a few years as well. Sandeep holds a MBA in Marketing and a Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering. Sandeep is married with two kids and a dog and is passionate about fitness, bootcamps and running.

Rafay Qureshi | Head of SEO | Seera Group

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 Local Start ups to Start ups from Y combinator to AliBaba Group 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 an all-rounder organic growth geek in the e-commerce industry and when he’s not working, he’s playing video games.

Murat Yatagan | SEO Consultant

Murat Yatağan is an SEO Consultant with 10+ years of expertise on SEO and UX, of which 5 years derives from his Senior Product Analyst role at Google Search Quality Team (aka. Trust & Safety) in Ireland. During his consultancy career he built expertise on technical SEO, high quality content creation strategy, outreach and international SEO throughout managing 65+ clients globally from various business verticals. Currently, he works at Brainly as VP of Growth in Poland. Before joining to Brainly, he worked at Global Savings Group as a Senior SEO Manager with a specific focus on technical SEO and offsite quality between 2017 and 2018 in Germany. He is a member of Advisory Board at a San Francisco based startup Indisera focusing on growth strategies and technical consultancy. He has been a Judge for UK Search Awards, MENA Search Awards and European Search Awards since 2016, and he also became a Judge for US Search Awards in 2018. He's also an Ambassador of OnCrawl.

Lukasz Zelezny | SEO Expert and Consultant

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. To get in touch with Lukasz simply search “Lukasz Zelezny” or visit https://Zelezny.uk