The awards are judged by an accomplished panel of experts and industry leaders.
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. You can find out more about the judging process here.
In the interests of transparency, we may give entrants an insight into why a winning entry was chosen.
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Judges
Mythili Banka | Director of Data Management | Ally Financial
Director of Data Management and certified Pega Decisioning Architect with 13 years of experience leading projects across banking, telecom, and consulting. Mythili's expertise is in leveraging data analytics and AI to drive customer-centric solutions and deliver measurable business outcomes using BPM and Decisioning platforms. In her current role, Mythili is part of an omnichannel personalization project at Ally Financial to provide the best customer experiences. Mythili works closely with cross-functional teams to develop data-driven strategies that enhance customer engagement and loyalty. As a certified Decisioning Architect, she led various customer-facing engagements helping clients achieve omnichannel customer experience implementations using Pega CDH. Mythili has been in Consulting for over a decade and moved to Industry to grow in the financial sector.
Martin Bryant | Founder | PreSeed Now
Martin SFP Bryant is the founder of UK startup newsletter PreSeed Now and technology and media consultancy Big Revolution. He also edits the Geekout social media industry newsletter with Matt Navarra. Martin is a speaker, writer, and educator in the fields of technology and media. He was previously Editor-in-Chief of international technology publication The Next Web, and Community Editor at Tech North, where he shone a light on the stories of startups and entrepreneurs in the North of England.
Jonny Fox | Head of Digital Marketing | Seventy7
Jonny Fox, Head of Digital Marketing at Seventy7, an experienced digital marketer with a proven track record in B2B and B2C marketing across various industries. At Seventy7 Jonny oversees all aspects of the digital team, such as; Paid Media, SEO, Social Media Marketing, Content Marketing, Influencer marketing, Digital PR, and Digital Strategy. His experience in a FTSE 100 company and agency-side roles have helped him develop valuable skills in marketing strategy, project management, decision-making, and navigating complex organisational structures.
Scot Furness | Business Growth Manager | Bruntwood SciTech
Scot supports innovative tech companies to grow and scale within the Bruntwood SciTech network which is home to a specialist community of over 500 of the country’s most disruptive science and technology businesses across 11 campuses UK wide. As part of the Innovation Services team he provides connections across the ecosystem, directly supporting Tech SMEs in Manchester and Cheshire through partnership led activity, delivery of programmes, innovation events and thought leadership activity. With a passion for nurturing early stage businesses, helping them to navigate challenges, find effective solutions and build engagement with peers for successful collaborative outcomes.
Jo Hamilton | Head of Digital | Home Group
Jo Hamilton is Head of Digital for Home Group and has worked in the housing sector for the past 6 years, She is responsible for leading and shaping the Home Group Digital strategy ensuring digital is embedded across the organisation and helping to identify digital opportunities for both customers and for colleagues. Prior to that Jo spent 20 years working at the BBC in various roles covering digital transformation, change management and digital measurement.
Steve Hilton | CEO | Liberty Apps
Founder of an agency started in 2008 to produce life changing smart phone applications. We've grown organically to create apps for big names including Warburtons, Microsoft & IBM. Recently spoke at TedX and International Business Festival Invited by the British Computer Society to deliver talks around the UK Presented technology talks at 20+ events regarding Culture, Chatbots & Mobile Apps Recent personal recognition includes: * Winner of the NHS Hackday * Winner of the Homeless Hack * Winner of Hacking the Future of Energy * Most notable app at the Public Health England HackX Lives to improve lives across the globe using smart phone technologies
Phil Hobden | Head of Digital Sales | Wolters Kluwer
With a background over 15 years in financial services & the Fintech accountancy sectors, Phil has worked for some of the largest and most innovative businesses in these industries, including Intuit, Natwest Banking Group, HSBC and now Wolters Kluwer. Phil is a contributor for Elite Business Magazine online, a serial podcast host, judge for UK Business Tech awards 2021/22 & the Global Tech awards 2022 , a public speaker (having spoken at Elite Business Live x3, Accountex x3, QuickBooks Get Connected and more) and guested on numerous industry podcasts and webinars including with industry bodies such as the ACCA. During his previous role at funding platform Capitalise as their Head of Customer Education he worked with over 1500 accountants, from Top 25 through to leading niche and boutique firms across the UK and South Africa, to help them implement funding as a service within their firms.
John Jones | Corporate Partner | Beever and Struthers
John leads Beever and Struthers' Corporate Team, having been made a Partner in 1999. Beever and Struthers is an award-winning firm of Chartered Accountants and Business Advisors in Manchester, Blackburn and London, and currently rank in the Top 50 firms nationally and Top 10 firms in the North West. John is a local council member of Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce and has been co-opted to the Partnership Steering Group of the Business Growth Hub. He was Chairman of Pro-Manchester from 2014 - 2015.
Alex Natthaphon Kanjarnavoranun | VP/Lead, Digital Campaign Planning and Execution Manager
Alex is a highly experienced digital marketer in paid and owned media channels, a content marketer, and SEO expert since 2008. He is a founder of ABACTODAY which is an ed-tech with an online community and e-learning platform for students. He was head of SEO at Lazada Thailand which was one of the largest E-commerce Unicorn in Thailand and South East Asia, before stepping up to SEO Lead position as the first marketing person in Traveloka, another Unicorn in South East Asia and had shown highly successful macro and micro-influencers strategies and proven result in SEO and Social Medias. He also led paid media channels in Thailand and Vietnam for Flight product which is undoubtedly highly competitive in the market. Not only online marketing, but he was also AVP Head of Marketing at Robinson Online under Central Group which led the omnichannel marketing team from digital campaign execution to offline marketing in Robinson department stores, which has 44 branches in Thailand, considered to be the most coverage department stores in Thailand. Currently, he is VP / Lead in Digital Campaign Planning & Execution Manager at SCB bank, focusing on digital banking and transformation under SCBx's vision, which is one of the largest digital tech-savvy public companies or banks in South East Asia. Moreover, he usually provides free public speaking about SEO, digital marketing, and any general topic.
Steve Kuncewicz | Partner & Head Of Creative, Digital & Marketing | Glaisyers ETL
Steve is a Partner and Head of Creative, Digital and Marketing at Glaisyers ETL in Manchester. He specialises in intellectual property, media social media and privacy law and is listed as a "recommended lawyer" in the Legal 500, and was a oo-founder pf the Bulletproof Agency Network. He is a regular media spokesperson, and has given interviews to the local and national press through BBC Breakfast, Sky News, ITV, BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 5 Live and LBC London. Steve is also the Manchester Publicity Association’s Honorary Solicitor.
Deepanjan Kundu | Senior Machine Learning Engineer and Technical Lead | Meta Platforms
Deepanjan is a Senior Machine Learning Engineer and a Technical Lead at Meta Platforms, where he focuses on the Facebook Integrity area, tackling ranking and ML problems. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science and Engineering from IIT Bombay in India. With an unwavering passion for ML/AI and its real-world applications, he boasts a cumulative experience of over 7 years in the realm of AI/ML. His fervor for machine learning, personalization, and ranking shines through his work. Prior to his current role, he spent 5 years at Google, where he served as a Machine Learning Technical Lead. During this period, he made significant contributions to various projects, including 3 years dedicated to YouTube Comments and Live chat, focusing on problems such as fairness and large language models, and 2 years at Next Billion Users. His work has impacted billions of users across the globe.
Davina Lines | Managing Director | Ecommerce Club & Mixing Digital
Davina Lines is Managing Director of Mixing Digital and the Ecommerce Club. She brings a wealth of knowledge and a big black book of digital contacts to ensure Mixing Digital’s event management services are of the highest standard. Davina co-founded Netimperative in 1999 and became Managing Director in 2002, stewarding the brand into new product launches and creating one of the most successful events programmes in the digital marketing industry. In the mid 90s Davina cut her digital teeth on New Media Age (now Econsultancy), forming part of the founding team and was responsible for the commercial development of the magazine and its early events from launch in May 1995 to 1999. In recent years Davina launched an ecommerce peer-to-peer community, the Ecommerce Club, which runs regular events in London and Manchester on topics relevant to the retail community.
Alexandra Morris | Managing Director | MakeUrMove
Alexandra is 36-years old and has led her national PropTech company, MakeUrMove, through a series of innovative changes by adopting and embracing advances in technology. She started as the first employee of MakeUrMove in 2008, initially as customer service advisor before progressing to Operations Director and finally, Managing Director in June 2017. Alex joined the board of MakeUrMove aged just 24 and has risen through the ranks to shape the future direction of the technology platform, with only basic computer skills in the beginning she set her mind to understanding software and web development and how it can be utilised to build award winning solutions and deliver outstanding service. In February 2020 she was announced as the Tech Entrepreneur of the Year 2020 in recognition of her work at MakeUrMove and the wider industry. Alex’s experience as a woman in business, and in particular in the property and tech industries, shape her ethos today. She’s proud to have grown a business organically and to have led the growth and development on a digital first basis, something which is paying off as MakeUrMove is able to adapt quickly by offering a leading in-house built software and removing dependency on outside parties, unlike their competitors. Alex is a Member of the ARLA Propertymark (MARLA). She is passionate about giving back and mentors a number of local businesses and students in Manchester with a strong focus on promoting the industry to more women, paving the way for a stronger and more diverse future. Spare time is spent with family, embracing a life-work balance raising three children is a key priority and she enjoys long walks with them and the family dogs at the weekend. She is also studying part time with the Open University for a law degree with just one year to go and is aiming for an ambitious first class honours.
Mazen Mroue | HEAD OF GLOBAL DIGITAL MEDIA AND MARTECH | FRIESLANDCAMPINA
Mazen is the head of Global Digital Media and Martech, The Netherlands/Signapore. Leading a team working on specialized nutrition products such as baby formula and his responsibilities cover media, technology, CRM, Website/SEO, Digital transformation, and innovation. Mazen oversees media pitches, digital strategies and transformation, and design of the technology ecosystem following the JBP with key suppliers such as Facebook, Google, & Tik-tok Before moving to the Netherlands, Mazen worked at the agency side for 6+ years based in Dubai, Singapore, and Beirut. His diverse portfolio covers prominent multinationals such as BlackBerry, Samsung, Emirates, Etihad airlines, and all the Richemont Luxury brands. Besides being a member of the world federation of advertisers, Core member in programmatic taskforce at Iab Nederlands, member of the programmatic committee at iab SEA+India/GCC, member of iab GCC, and holding 100+ certifications across all digital platforms and technologies, Mazen won many prestigious digital awards targeting the MENA region and is looking to score more worldwide. Mazen is a big believer in training both the body and the mind to be strong. So next to his professional achievements, he is a world marathoner and Guinness World Record holder, with more than 60 full marathons completed and many ultras.
Lou Nylander | Marketing Consultant | Wildflowers of London
Lou has over 15 years of experience holding down influential positions, managing global marketing teams and shaping the course of some of the world's leading digital advertising companies, including PubMatic, MediaCom, AOL/ The Huffington Post and Zenith. Before launching her marketing consultancy, Lou was the Global Marketing Director at Unruly and managed the marketing operation during the 2020 acquisition from News Corp to Tremor International. Five years ago, Lou founded 'Wildflowers of London'- Women's Circle, a social enterprise and events business focused on empowering women in South East London, where she resides. She fosters an inclusive culture across everything she does champions women, drives change, and leads from the front with a positive and inspiring attitude.
Giulia Panozzo | NEUROMARKETING CONSULTANT | NEUROSCIENTIVE
Giulia is an in-house Director of Customer Acquisition, where she focuses on SEO and international strategy for e-commerce. She previously worked on global organic growth for websites of the caliber of RS Components and Expedia. She leveraged her background in Neuroscience research to drive customer acquisition informed by cognitive patterns and bias. She has recently launched her own consultancy, Neuroscientive, and is a regular speaker at international industry events, where she delivers talks about neuromarketing and data analytics for search.
Tiago Perdigão | CEO | Fractal Mind
Tiago is an experienced Manager with +25 years of experience in the areas of marketing, sales and retail, having worked in companies such as adidas, Jeronimo Martins, Sonae and FNAC. He has worked for adidas in several Marketing roles in Europe and the MENA, where he received many media, activation and retail awards. He also as been part of several jury panels in marketing awards events on the region. Always pioneering in the use of new technologies to the business world, he took on gamification as his latest challenge in 2017, currently leading Gamification startups in both Portugal and the UK. He achieved is Bachelors in Management in Portugal, followed by an MBA with Marketing focus in the UK. More recently he concluded a Post-Graduation Diploma in Retail Management and another in Arts Markets and Collections. He is also a long time Member of the CIM (MCIM) and (believe it or not!) a Chartered Accountant.
Plamen Popov | Head of Organic Traffic & SEO | Acronis
Plamen Popov is an experienced digital marketer & SEO Expert with history of working for internationally renowned brands. He currently is working as Head of Organic Traffic & SEO in Acronis, world leader in cyber protection & data security company. Plamen has been at Acronis for 3 years, coming from the marketing team of Management Financial Group, where he lead global marketing strategies for various fin-tech brands inside the holding. Plamen has a genuine interest in marketing and technology and that drives his experience through out consulting start up companies and leading teams in enterprise brands exploring various aspects of marketing activities including PPC, Social Media, Display, Programmatic, App Marketing and SEO. His passion for Search Marketing & SEO always drives him to learn and explore new possibilities of creating better user experiences and results.
James Simpson | Owner | Copper Candle Ltd
James Simpson is the owner of Copper Candle, a live events XR studio. James is a creative technologist, passionate about the use of technology in creating theatre and live entertainment. His specialism and PhD research is pre-visualisation, particularly using XR technology. James has worked with the Royal Opera House, Royal Shakespeare Company, and has worked on productions including Miss Saigon, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat, &Juliet and the Commonwealth Games Ceremonies. Alongside visualisation, James creates XR location-based experiences and virtual reality theatre. Copper Candle is building a metaverse live events platform and have won awards for its patent-pending live streaming technology and XR workflows for real-time content creation.
Roxana Stingu | Head of Search & SEO | Alamy
Roxana Stingu is the Head of Search and SEO at Alamy, where she specializes in technical and image SEO for enterprise websites. She also oversees Alamy's internal search engine that handles over 350M assets and has an avid interest in all things AI. Roxana loves getting into the nitty-gritty of SEO and her favorite pastime is automating anything repetitive that she encounters at work, or in life. Roxana is also a speaker for conferences such as BrightonSEO and WTFest and a co-author for Blue Array's "Mastering In-house SEO" (First and Second editions) and Majestic's "SEO in 2022".
Naomi Timperley | Co Founder | Tech North Advocates
Co Founder of Tech North Advocates and GSI. Proud to be in the top 50 Computer Weekly Most Influential Women in UK IT 2018, 2019, 2020, 3rd most influential woman in 2021 and 4th in 2022. Naomi is an experienced growth and innovation consultant with established relationships across the UK. She has extensive experience working with start-ups and growth businesses particularly in the tech, digital and creative sectors. Naomi has been a mentor for 8 years and mentored several hundred businesses. She is an Honorary Industry Fellow at the University of Salford Business School and on the board of the Industry Advisory Board. Naomi also sits on the board of charity Digital Inc, VocalEyes CIC and Social Enterprise PIE. She was previously chair of Future Everything.
Mandy Tucker | CEO | Start Up Culture Code
Mandy has over 20 years’ experience as a Corporate Technology leader as well as a qualified coach and Founder of Mandy Tucker Consulting and the “Start-up Culture Code” framework helping founders and small businesses scale using corporate strategies and insights. She speaks on leadership, Operations, Culture enablement, Wellbeing and Emotional Intelligence as a bedrock of any successful business. Mandy is determined to galvanise new businesses to depart from the norm and improve diversity and inclusion as a way of promoting great places to work and a people centred strategy. Mandy has been featured in Women of the City Magazine and listed as “Women to Watch 2020” and nominated for the Black British Business Awards 2021. She is also a University MBA Mentor and Coach as well as a judge for the Princess Royal Training Awards 2021 and the upcoming Growing Business Awards 2022.
Claire Worthington | Founder | Village Web Company CIC | @
Claire is a the founder of Village Web Company CIC, a social enterprise from Stockport in Greater Manchester that fights digital exclusion and encourages diversity in tech. Claire strongly believes that the best way to fight digital exclusion is with friendly, knowledgeable humans and can often be found on Twitter ranting about digital exclusion. Claire retrained as a web developer in 2009, when she realised that the website she had for her childrens' clothing business wasn’t very good. There was no budget to pay another developer, so she enrolled at university and learnt how to build them herself. Claire now teaches web development at Manchester Metropolitan University and supports WordPress workshops at the University of Sheffield. When she’s not building websites, delivering training or mentoring, Claire is part of a small team that runs a charity called S.P.A.C.E. who support families who have children with ADHD.