Speakers

Anu Adegbola has been Paid Media Editor of Search Engine Land since 2024. She covers paid search, paid social, retail media, video and more.

In 2008, Anu's career started with delivering digital marketing campaigns (mostly but not exclusively Paid Search) by building strategies, maximising ROI, automating repetitive processes and bringing efficiency from every part of marketing departments through inspiring leadership both on agency, client and marketing tech side.

Outside of editing Search Engine Land articles, she is the founder of PPC networking event - PPC Live and the host of weekly podcast PPCChat Roundup.

Recognise her? Well that's because she has spoken on several stages including, but not exclusive to - SMX (US), SMX (Munich), Friends of Search (Amsterdam), brightonSEO, The Marketing Meetup, HeroConf (PPC Hero), SearchLove, BiddableWorld, SESLondon, PPC Chat Live, AdWorld Experience (Bologna).

Jason Barnard is an entrepreneur, author, keynote speaker and CEO of Kalicube, a groundbreaking digital marketing agency based in France. Jason specialises in Online Brand Management and his superhero skill is his ability to influence and reshape Google's focus on an individual or a company. This isn't just optimization; it's a strategic manipulation of digital perceptions. He's been working on Google since the year it was incorporated, and he has been successfully manipulating Google from day one. Literally. How many people do you personally know who can say that! Google has said that they "... don't know anyone externally who has as much insight into how [Knowledge Panels] work."

Annalisa Church is the Vice President of Digital Technology, Insights Operations at Akamai Technologies, where she leads digital strategy, operations, and marketing technology initiatives.

Dave Davies is the Principal SEO Manager at CoreWeave - the Essential Cloud for AI , where he leads SEO across the company and its acquired brands, including Weights Biases, the platform that the leading companies using AI train on. With 17 years of co-founding and running Beanstalk Internet Marketing alongside his wife, Mary, Dave brings deep technical SEO and content strategy roots to one of the most dynamic companies in AI infrastructure. Today, his work centers on generative engine optimization and agent observability: ensuring that as AI reshapes how answers are found and how systems are understood, CoreWeave is built to be visible in both.

As an author for Search Engine Land and other top industry publications, and a seasoned speaker from SMX Advanced to SMX London, Dave brings over 25 years of experience to his work. His career has been driven by a relentless curiosity about the future of search: How does AI impact search - and is it even search anymore? What are the machines really looking for? How can AI, especially agentic AI, be harnessed to boost productivity and provide deep insights into digital marketing? And perhaps most importantly, what must SEOs and marketers do to thrive in this brave new world?

Jessie Dawson is the Senior Director of Web Strategy and Operations at Akamai Technologies, where she leads digital teams focusing on innovative web experiences and AI-driven discovery.

Greg Finn is the Co-Founder and Head of Performance & Innovation at Cypress North, a performance-driven digital marketing agency with offices in Buffalo and Rochester, New York. With more than 20 years of experience in digital marketing, Greg specializes in paid media strategy, performance marketing, and emerging advertising technologies, overseeing large-scale advertising investments for brands across the globe.

A recognized voice in the search marketing industry, Greg has contributed more than 700 articles to Search Engine Land and also serves on the programming team for Search Marketing Expo (SMX).

Greg is the co-creator and co-host of Marketing O'Clock, a popular weekly digital marketing news podcast covering the latest developments in paid search, SEO, social media, and advertising technology. He also co-hosts It's New, a daily show alongside Barry Schwartz covering breaking news and developments in search and digital marketing, as well as Commerce O'Clock, a podcast focused on e-commerce marketing, advertising, attribution, analytics, and industry trends.

Known for his candid insights, industry expertise, and practical approach, Greg focuses on helping marketers navigate an increasingly automated advertising landscape while keeping measurable business results at the forefront.

Glenn Gabe is an SEO and AI Search consultant at G-Squared Interactive (GSQi) and has over 30 years of experience in digital marketing. Glenn currently helps clients with algorithm update recovery, AI Search visibility, technical SEO audits, and SEO/AI Search training. During his career, Glenn has helped companies across a wide range of industries including news and media publishing, ecommerce, health and medical, finance, startups, education, non-profits, affiliate marketing, and more.

Brad Geddes has been involved in PPC since 1998. He is a co-founder of AdAlysis, a PPC recommendation engine.

Brad is the author of Advanced Google AdWords, the most advanced book ever written about Google's advertising program.

He has worked with many of the world's leading companies in managing and perfecting their PPC management and workflows. One of his trademarks has been demystifying the complicated aspects of SEM.

Not one to hold secrets, Brad prefers to educate marketers on the various aspects of crafting successful marketing campaigns to ensure success for all parties involved.

Danny Goodwin is the Editorial Director of Search Engine Land & SMX. In addition to writing daily about SEO, PPC, and more for Search Engine Land, Goodwin also manages Search Engine Land’s roster of subject-matter experts. He also helps program our conference series, SMX – Search Marketing Expo. Goodwin has been covering search industry news and trends since 2007. He has spoken at many major search conferences and virtual events, and has been sourced for his expertise by a wide range of publications and podcasts.

Amy Hebdon is the founder of Paid Search Magic, a specialized Google Ads consultancy, and has over 20 years of experience helping brands build systems that drive real performance. Known for combining storytelling with technical rigor, she helps marketers move beyond surface-level optimizations to focus on what actually matters. Amy has been recognized as a Top Influential PPC expert and regularly contributes to Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Land, and SMX.

Anthony Higman is the CEO of ADSQUIRE, a digital marketing agency for lawyers. He started his career in the mail room of a large personal injury law firm in Philadelphia and rose through the ranks working in several different positions before becoming the firms paid advertising manager. Anthony then worked at another large legal marketing agency as director of paid search and SEO before starting ADSQUIRE. Anthony is a graduate of the US SBA Emerging leaders executive MBA program and was this year named as one of the top 50 most influencial PPC experts as well as a top contibutor to Search Engine Rountable. He is also a marathon runner and former private pilot. 

Michael Johnson is a 12 year veteran in the link building industry, over that time he's helped design content and link building strategies for businesses ranging from SMBs to Fortune 500 companies. Michael is the Founder of Resolve a boutique SEO agency that specializes in content & link building campaigns designed to drive organic search traffic relevant to their clients' buyer's journeys. 

When Michael isn't helping his team build great links, he's wrangling his 4 crazy kids and supporting his perpetually mediocre sports teams. 

An artist and a technologist, all rolled into one, Michael King recently founded boutique digital marketing agency, iPullRank. Mike consults with companies all over the world, including brands ranging from SAP, American Express, HSBC, SanDisk, General Mills, and FTD, to a laundry list of promising startups and small businesses. Mike has held previous roles as Marketing Director, Developer, and tactical SEO at multi-national agencies such as Publicis Modem and Razorfish. Effortlessly leaning on his background as an independent hiphop musician, Mike King is a dynamic speaker who is called upon to contribute to conferences and blogs all over the world.

Jordan Koene is the CEO and Co-founder of Previsible, a human-led AI and Search Discovery Agency. Under his leadership, the agency has scaled to over 80 employees globally, supporting Fortune 100 companies and innovative digital-native brands in expanding their reach through organic search. Jordan drives strategy and innovation by combining the power of people, process, and technology to unlock transformational growth.

Previously, Jordan served as CEO of Searchmetrics, where he led U.S. growth and helped establish the company as a market leader in search and content intelligence. He developed data-driven strategies to scale content and search performance for global enterprises and top agencies.

Nikki Lam is SVP, Head of Earned Media at NP Digital, a global digital marketing agency named 2026 Performance Marketing Agency of the year by AdAge. She specializes in developing Search Everywhere strategies that help brands build visibility, authority, and measurable growth across traditional, AI and social search.Nikki Lam is a seasoned SEO expert who has spent over a decade elevating the online presence of global brands like Adobe, Lenovo, Samsung, Under Armour, Levi's, T-Mobile, Office Depot, American Airlines, Western Union, SoFi more.

As a contributing author to Search Engine Land, member of the SMX Programming Committee, course instructor at the Digital Marketing Institute, speaker at brightonSEO San Diego and SMX Advanced, contributor to Neil Patel webinars, and author of ongoing social media industry update videos, Nikki is committed to engaging with the SEO community through thought leadership and open dialogue about the ever-changing search landscape.

Jake Leary is an ex-wannabe journalist and current lead strategist at Fire&Spark. He works with DTC digital health brands, B2B SaaS companies, and the occasional ecom oddball to grow their organic visibility.

Aaron Levy is the evangelist for Optmyzr, working to improve the lives of the modern advertisers through technology. He's been in the industry for nearly 20 years, leading paid media campaigns with clients ranging from Fortune 50s to startups and local businesses. Prior to Optmyzr, he led a 100+ person enterprise SEM team at Tinuiti, a full-service digital agency with offices across the US, and at Seer before that. Aaron's helped his teams build strategies for some of the most recognizable brands in the world.

Aaron's a frequent industry speaker and instructor at Drexel and University of Vermont, working to grow the next generation of great marketers. In his free time, he's either on the golf course, the hockey rink or in a kitchen (hopefully his own).

Melissa Mackey is Head of Paid Search for Compound Growth Marketing. A veteran PPC marketer, she helps clients achieve maximum ROI from paid search. Mackey contributes regularly to several industry publications, including Search Engine Land, Search Engine Journal, MediaPost, and AdWeek, writing on PPC strategy. Mackey has spoken at industry conferences such as SMX Advanced, SMX Next and HeroConf.

Throughout her career, her achievements include overseeing strategy development and implementation of paid search and paid social campaigns for all types of advertisers, as well as execution and analysis of ad copy and landing page strategy.

Mackey holds a Dual BA from Michigan State University, and a Masters of Management from Aquinas College. She lives in East Lansing, Michigan with her husband and the empty bedrooms of her two grown-and-flown children.

Shelley Marshall is a Director on the Digital Marketing Team at UPMC, where she leads the organization's enterprise Search Optimization strategy across traditional, local, and the rapidly evolving AI search landscape. Her work is grounded in a consumer-first approach, with a focus on understanding how people search, removing barriers, and helping consumers more easily find trusted information and connect with the care they need.

With more than 20 years of experience in digital marketing, Shelley has spent much of her career in healthcare. She previously led digital marketing for PinnacleHealth System before joining UPMC's broader digital marketing organization following the systems' integration in 2017. It was there that she moved more deeply into search, bringing together two things she cares deeply about: understanding consumer behavior and making healthcare easier to navigate.

Shelley's passion for healthcare is also shaped by her own experiences navigating the health care system, which reinforce her belief that marketing should always begin with the consumer. Today, she focuses on building high-performing teams and evolving search strategies to meet changing consumer behaviors and technologies while keeping the journey to care at the center.

An avid fitness enthusiast, Shelley enjoys staying active and spending time with her family outside of work.

Julia Meteer is a Senior Digital Marketing Manager at Cypress North, a performance marketing agency. She has over 4 years of experience in digital marketing, including ppc for both Lead Gen Ecommerce. Her primary focus is Paid Search, specifically within Google Ads. She is also a co-host of the Digital Marketing Podcast, Marketing O'Clock where she covers trending PPC news stories each week.

Mordy is the Head of Brand at SE Ranking, a search and brand visiblity platform. Mordy is also the author of numerous SEO studies, a frequent conference speaker, and has sat behind the mic of way too many SEO & marketing podcasts.

Tracey Pilon is a global business leader and strategist at Microsoft, known for driving commercial growth, operational transformation, and cutting-edge AI innovation across international markets. Renowned for her people-first leadership style, Tracey pairs high-stakes go-to-market execution with a relentless dedication to building inclusive, high-performing cultures-championing equity as an ERG leader and actively sponsoring the next generation of industry talent. A dynamic executive who thrives at the intersection of technological change and organizational empowerment, she brings a compelling, pragmatic perspective to the stage on what it takes to scale impactful businesses while lifting others as you climb.

Emily Popson is the Vice President of Growth Marketing at CallRail, where she leads demand generation, website optimization, customer marketing, and content strategy. A former small business owner and award-winning B2B marketing leader, Emily is passionate about making great marketing — and meaningful growth — a reality for any business, no matter its size. She’s committed to giving businesses the insights, tools, and confidence they need to build high-performing programs that deliver lasting impact.

Co-founder of House of Performance, an agency designed to help businesses succeed in paid media.

We built the agency to offer new ways of working to businesses. We don't care who manages your campaigns, just that you improve them. With over 15 years specialising in PPC, Paid Social Display, I've worked with clients like Timpson, Universal Music Fullers Pubs to get stronger performance.

Kim Salem-Jackson is Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, leading Akamai's global marketing efforts including brand, purpose, corporate communications, product marketing, field marketing, and digital marketing, as well as the company's customer enablement programs.

Salem-Jackson is a data-driven, global marketing executive whose 20-plus-year career has been focused on activating marketing as a growth engine and amplifying marketing's impact on the business. She is passionate about advanced analytics and data science, and using that data to achieve optimal marketing efficiency. Previously, she served as Akamai's Senior Vice President, Global Marketing Corporate Communications, where she led global field marketing, customer marketing, channel marketing, events, corporate communications, and the sales development organization.

She is passionate about developing and leading high-performing, purpose-driven teams. She helped lead the launch and adoption of Akamai's enriched mission and purpose, driving commitment to shared values both in market and within the company. She is a 2021 CMO Award winner.

Salem-Jackson also serves on the board of directors of the Akamai Foundation. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism and Mass Communications from the University of South Carolina.

Jyll Saskin Gales is a Google Ads coach, teacher and consultant. She advises agencies, business owners and in-house marketers, training them to get the best results from Google Ads. She hosts the Inside Google Ads podcast, her own “Inside Google Ads” and “Google Ads for Beginners” courses, and wrote the bestselling book "Inside Google Ads: Everything you need to know about Audience Targeting." Jyll worked at Google for 6 years and has an MBA from Harvard Business School.

As the Tech SEO Senior Manager at Pipedrive, Sam Torres uses her multidisciplinary background as a developer and data architect to solve complex problems at the intersection of marketing and technology.

She is known for blurring the lines between disciplines to deliver creative, high-impact technical strategies with a transparent and honest approach.

Darrell Tyler is a seasoned professional in search engine optimization, currently serving as Senior Manager of Organic Growth at CallRail

He helps businesses leverage proven, results-driven SEO strategies to generate more leads, drive in-store traffic, and increase overall revenue.

Through one-on-one consulting, group coaching, and hands-on SEO services, he works with clients to uncover effective ways to grow their business using search engines like Google, YouTube, and Bing.

Since 2014, he has supported businesses across a variety of industries in achieving real, measurable results—helping them attract new customers and generate consistent leads through SEO.

Frederick Vallaeys co-founded Optmyzr in 2013 to give search marketers the tools they needed to make managing pay-per-click (PPC) accounts quick and simple. A former Google executive and one of the tech giant’s first 500 employees, Fred spent close to 10 years managing and evangelizing for the AdWords (now Google Ads) product, and is best remembered for his work on Quality Score.

Fred is also an accomplished author and speaker on PPC account management, automation, and scripts — having spoken at high-profile events like SMX Advanced and Hero Conf and having published “Unlevel the Playing Field: The Biggest Mindshift in PPC History” in 2022 and "Digital Marketing in an AI World: Futureproofing Your PPC Agency" in 2019. 

He is also the host of Optmyzr’s PPC Town Hall, a live video podcast that empowers paid search professionals with the latest insight about the search channels and marketing tools. He was recognized as 2018’s SEM Contributor of the Year by Search Engine Land, top 10 on PPC Hero’s definitive industry ranking of the most influential PPC experts of 2021, and Search Marketer of the Year for 2021 by Search Engine Land.

Martha van Berkel is the co-founder and CEO of Schema App, a semantic technology company that helps enterprise brands control how they are represented in AI and search. By building a semantic data layer, Schema App enables organizations to improve visibility, protect their brand, and drive more efficient organic growth.

She focuses on helping marketing teams navigate the shift from traditional SEO to AI-driven discovery by establishing a structured source of truth for their content.

Prior to Schema App, Martha spent 14 years at Cisco Systems leading global online support strategy. She holds a degree in Applied Mathematics and Engineering, attended MIT for Innovation and Strategy, is a mother of two, and an avid rower.

Timmy Walczak is a content editor and video producer specializing in SEO-driven storytelling and script writing. He crafts content strategies that combine written depth with visual engagement, helping brands communicate clearly and rank effectively. At LBHQ, Timmy oversees editorial quality and leads video production for client and in-house content.

Susan Yen helps teams use paid search as a decision-making engine — not just a reporting channel. Working in consulting and freelance capacities, she combines growth advisory with hands-on platform management to align paid media with real business outcomes.

She partners with marketing, sales, and executive teams to guide investment, testing, and scalable growth strategies with clarity and intention.

Susan is a frequent speaker at HeroConf and SEMpdx and a guest on PPC-focused podcasts, where she shares practical insights on intent, relevancy, and building paid media programs teams can trust — and scale.