Judges

The US Agency Awards are judged by an esteemed panel of experts working brand side.

The judging is a rigorous two-step process that involves pre-scoring to determine the shortlist and a judge panel session that will establish an overall winner and in some cases a silver award.

Our Judges

Alex Alexakis
Alex Alexakis | Founder | PixelChefs.com
Alex is the Founder of PixelChefs.com, an award-winning SEO-focused web design firm in business since 2009. He specializes in the latest digital design infused with SEO strategy, Alex and his team work with companies such as CabinetSelect.com, Westgate Resorts, DrinkAGame.com, and many others across the globe. In the past, Alex worked in user interface design (UI) and served as Digital Marketing Manager for one of the world’s largest hospitality companies. He has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Ringling College and is a frequent speaker at search conferences and contributor to digital marketing publications. Until recently, Alex participated in and was the Founder of the largest SEO Meetup group in Florida. When Alex is not working, he is either chasing his kids around, thinking about work, or both. Find Alex on Twitter @Pixelchefs.
Bill Hartzer
Bill Hartzer | SEO Consultant |
Bill Hartzer is an independent SEO Consultant. He relies on his 20 years of direct SEO experience to provide technical SEO audits of websites, as well as technical link audits and link cleanups of websites. Mr. Hartzer is known worldwide for his research on the topic of search engine optimization and the New gTLD domain names, as well as Dot Brand domain names. He provides research and marketing of white papers and case studies related to the New gTLDs, as well as consulting related to domain migrations.
Chris Ioannou
Chris Ioannou | SEO Consultant |
Chris is a seasoned SEO professional with over a decade of experience in the industry. He currently runs a small consultancy that helps businesses of all sizes improve their online visibility through technical SEO, content marketing, outreach, and reputation management. Chris is passionate about helping businesses succeed online, and he has a proven track record of delivering results. He has worked with a wide range of clients, including small businesses, startups, and large enterprises. Helping clients achieve significant increases in organic search traffic, improve their website rankings, and generate more leads and sales. As well as being proficient in content marketing strategies, Chris is highly technical and is a specialist technical SEO utlising R and RStudio to implement automations that improve his client delivery. In his spare time, Chris enjoys spending time with his family and following the financial markets using technical analysis as a hobbyist speculator.
Chris Lehault
Chris Lehault | Consumer Engagement Manager | Campbell's
Chris Lehault is a hybrid creative/marketing leader who believes that brands succeed when both work together. Currently, he is the VP of Marketing at Other Half Brewing, where he oversees the marketing function, in-house design studio, and the brand's direct-to-consumer eCommerce platform. His previous roles include serving as the Global Director of Brand Experience at ZX Ventures, the accelerator arm of Anheuser Busch InBev, as well as stints as a creative director at FCB, Sapient Razorfish, and Wunderman. Off the clock, he enjoys doing the most suburban of things with his wife and two kids across the river in New Jersey.
Eli Schwartz
Eli Schwartz | | Author of Product-Led SEO and Growth Consultant
Eli Schwartz is the author of the bestselling book Product-Led SEO. He is an SEO expert and consultant with more than a decade of experience driving successful SEO and growth programs for leading B2B and B2C companies. He helps clients like Shutterstock, BlueNile, Quora, Gusto, Mixpanel, and Zendesk build and execute Global SEO strategies that dramatically increase their organic visibility at scale. In the past, Eli led the SEO team at SurveyMonkey, building organic search from nearly zero to one of the largest growth drivers at the company. He helped launched SurveyMonkey’s first APAC office and oversaw international SEO pre- and post-IPO. Prior to SurveyMonkey, he led user acquisition at High Gear Media, pushing the company from 500,000 new users to 6 million every month in just three years.
Emma Borochoff
Emma Borochoff | Head of Marketing | 8fig
Emma Borochoff has over a decade of experience growing and leading B2B tech marketing teams across multiple industries, from Fintech to Ecommerce. She is a hands-on, full stack marketer who has helped several SaaS companies scale from 1M to 15M in ARR. Emma currently leads 8fig's US Marketing team on the mission to enable every ecommerce seller to grow to 8 figures in order to achieve financial freedom, entrepreneurial success or whatever their heart desires.
Gemma Fontané
Gemma Fontané | SEO Consultant & Founder | denadal.cat
Gemma Fontané is a trilingual SEO consultant, co-founder of Orvit digital consultancy and founder of the international ecommerces denadal.cat & tiodenadal.online. With her company, she leads strategies for B2B and Ecommerce companies to help them generate business. Gemma has knowledge and experience in international SEO as well as content and technical SEO. In the last year, as a public speaker, Gemma has spoken at conferences in different countries such as Friends of Search in Amsterdam, Search Y Paris 2022 in Paris or the International Search Summit in Barcelona and has collaborated with different industry blogs and seminars.
Grant Simmons
Grant Simmons | Marketing Consultant | Simmonet Marketing, LLC
Grant is a Senior SEO Strategist with over 30 years in marketing with an emphasis on digital channels and focus on collaborative SEO consulting, analytics, content, and performance-based successes for Fortune 500 enterprises, local, multi-location, national, and international companies and organizations. Grant’s experience spans real estate, healthcare, addiction, e-commerce, senior care, technology, travel, and employment verticals, often sharing his experience and insights in vertical-industry podcasts, webinars, and publications, and as a speaker at SEO & marketing conferences worldwide, including; Pubcon, LRTCon, Chiang Mai SEO, Brighton SEO. SMX, and more.
Janna Pugh
Janna Pugh | SEO Specialist | Five9
Janna Pugh is a SEO Specialist with a history of agency and in-house work. She has recently been nationally recognized as the Industry Rising Star in Conductor's 2022 C2 Summit and regularly speaks with college classes about the essentials of organic marketing. With her passion for SEO, she knows firsthand how to make the smallest and largest websites succeed organically. Her areas of focus specialize in enterprise SEO, with scalability and automation for both small and large SEO teams. Her varied approach to SEO combines on-site content with off-site brand management. In her free time, she loves trying out new recipes and reading mystery novels.
Lukas Adamec
Lukas Adamec | DACH Performance Marketing Manager | Zendesk
Lukas Adamec has been working within Paid Digital for 11+ years, during which he transitioned from an employee to a freelancer & CEO of Abadam Marketing. In the last 5 years Lukas has focused on Consultancy - working with established agencies to deliver client growth. His focus is particularly on international paid opportunities, from Google to Yandex, from Naver to Baidu, from Yahoo JP to Seznam. Lukas is a firm believer in knowledge sharing and enjoys discussing experiences with established online marketers as well as providing training to new colleagues. During his time off, Lukas recharges his energy by being disconnected from online influences and instead spends his time on wildlife photography.
Lukasz Zelezny
Lukasz Zelezny | Director, Co-Owner - SEO Expert and Consultant | SEO.London
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.
Richard Gregory
Richard Gregory | Co-founder | AgencyNXD
Richard is co-founder of AgencyNXD as well as an advisor and NXD to multiple tech firms and agencies, including Adzooma, Fluid Digitial and Ruler Analytics. Heralding from “Silicon Ramsbottom” he is an ardent supporter of the digital and tech industry in the North of England. Previously, Richard was the managing director of digital agency Latitude, director of Tech North and co-founder of SAScon.
Michael Emiliani
Michael Emiliani | Paid Marketing Manager | Thrasio
Mike is a seasoned digital marketing expert with a decade of experience in PPC and digital media. His passion lies in developing and growing businesses through comprehensive, integrated digital media campaigns. His ability to draw on knowledge and experiences from a wide range of challenges from his time in-house, agency-side and as a consultant has given him a unique depth and breadth to solving complex problems in PPC and broadly digital marketing. Mike has shared insights as a contributing writer and speaker at events. His extensive knowledge has also earned her the distinction of being a featured subject matter expert at Endicott College in Massachusetts, a contributor to industry blogs and recipient of the 2018 Interactive Marketing Award.
Michelle Gledhill
Michelle Gledhill | EMPLOYABILITY LEAD DEPARTMENT OF MARKETING, RETAIL & TOURISM | Manchester Metropolitan University
Dr Michelle Gledhill is a specialist in in advertising, branding and media. My former position (2010 to 2022) as Programme Leader for MSc Creative Advertising Strategy combined my expertise in strategic thinking when working on live briefs with brands such as Manchester City, the Happy Linen Company and Rockstar Spirits, with my passion for developing and nurturing student talent in the Manchester and across the UK. This has led to a new role where I am the Marketing Retail and Tourism Employability Lead. She will be working with agencies and businesses to enhance the career prospects of MRT students. Her fascination for branding led her to complete a unique doctoral thesis on how brands are processed whilst playing videogames. She is a highly experienced marketer, Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM), CIM Senior Examiner and HE Examiner.
Andor Palau
Andor Palau | International SEO Consultant | Andor Palau - SEO & Online Marketing
Andor is an independent international SEO consultant based in Berlin, Germany, and has started his online career back in 2009. Having worked both in-house, as well as on the agency side, he is currently advising online shops, classifiers, marketplaces, and other companies regarding international organic growth strategies as well as technical SEO issues as an independent SEO consultant. He is former Head of SEO at Peak Ace, where he was responsible for SEO and managed a 20+ people team of SEO consultants and editors. Before joining the agency side, Andor was In-house SEO for a top-3 comparison portal in highly competitive verticals such as insurance, power, and telco. Andor’s core expertise is strategic SEO as well as technical SEO, covering topics such as crawlability, indexing management, migrations, and site structure optimization. He is a lecturer at the afs Akademie in Germany, which has made it its mission to offer quality education and training in the field of SEO.
Rachel Jacobs
Rachel Jacobs | Founder | Ecommerce Partnerships
Rachel Jacobs Founder of Ecommerce Agency Growth Leading authority in preparing ecommerce agencies for exit. Dedicated to enabling agency owners to get out of the day-to-day of running their agency. Specialised in implementing best practice operations, systems, and processes to scale ecommerce agencies profitably and efficiently. From building scalable retainer models to coaching high-performing leadership teams, I work with ecommerce agencies to simplify the next steps in scaling their ecommerce agency.
Samuel Hall
Samuel Hall | Senior Director, Corporate, Employee and Brand Communications | Samsara
With 20 years experience within the brand, media, content and communications world, across both corporate, consumer and employee leadership communication roles, I am a true believer in the value that strategic communications can bring to any organisation be it in terms of brand value or contribution to the bottom line. I have a proven track record in campaign management, content creation, social media strategy creation and execution, people and agency management at both a Pan EMEA and local market level, supported by solid contacts across both UK and international media and influencers.
Steve Kuncewicz
Steve Kuncewicz | Partner and 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.
Trond Lyngbø
Trond Lyngbø | Senior SEO Consultant & Founder | Search Planet AS
Trond Lyngbø is the founder of Search Planet and a senior SEO Consultant. He has over two decades of experience in SEO, e-commerce, content strategy and digital analysis. His clients include multinational Fortune 500 corporations and major Norwegian companies. Trond has helped grow businesses through more effective search marketing and SEO strategies. He is most passionate about working with e-commerce companies and web shops to develop and expand their omni-channel marketing initiatives.
Veronika Höller
Veronika Höller | Global SEO Lead | CompuGroup
Veronika is a Global SEO Lead and has worked in SEO and PPC marketing for over 14 years. She started as a copywriter and PPC Manager in a little Ads Agency. She has continuously developed herself further into the direction of SEO. Over the years, she has worked as a digital marketing manager in agencies and international companies, including CompuGroup where she is now. International SEO and PPC Strategies are Top of her priority list. She views SEO as a whole puzzle and not just individual sub-areas, hence why she trained herself in all areas – content, technology, PPC, SMM and UX. Today she spreads her knowledge as a speaker on the stages of international digital marketing conferences such as BrightonSEO, SMX advanced, International Search Summit etc. For her all digital marketing channels have to be united to get the best of your website.

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Testimonials

We wanted our agency to be recognized on the whole, not just for the singular work we have completed for each client. The well-recognized “Don’t Panic” awards, which The US Agency Awards are a part of, fills that gap perfectly.
Groove Commerce
Our team is honored to be on the shortlist for Best PPC Campaign in the 2022 US Agency Awards. To be an award finalist for our paid media work with CenturyLink is the icing on the cake.
Mad Fish Digital
SEO Werkz, is proud to be listed among the shortlist of finalists for the 2022 US Agency Awards! We’re honored to be recognized by such a prestigious body within the world of creative design and digital marketing.
SEO Werkz
Often the award win warrants a press release, but if not, certainly newsletter, website and email mentions help to elevate the agency profile and it’s great information to include in the agency boilerplate
SSDM
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