The Northern Digital Awards are judged by a panel of industry leaders and experts in 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 winners.
The 2023 Judges will be announced shortly
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Judges
Mike Barker | Strategic Leader | Local Government and NHS
Mike Barker started his career in PR working for local authorities and leading agencies within the NW. He moved in house to the NHS in 2002 and has since held a variety of director of communications, corporate affairs and corporate strategy roles. He has held Board level positions within the NHS for the last 20 years holding amongst his responsibilities the communications portfolio. He is currently the CEO of an NHS organisation responsible for a £450m commissioning budget with extensive stakeholder relations programmes.
Joanna Bodley | Senior Lecturer In Digital Marketing & Marketing | Manchester Metropolitan University
With over ten years’ experience, Joanna Bodley has seen every side of the industry from creative to comms and large to small agencies, as well as in-house teams. She has developed, implemented and overseen social and digital strategies and provided guidance for a wide range of clients like The Co-operative Bank, Gumtree and Chewits. She has a keen understanding of the complexities involved in making digital, social media, content and advertising efforts a success. She harnesses this as a speaker and professional educator, having delivered training for numerous organisations, including Econsultancy. Jo is now a Senior Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University and course director for their MSc Digital Marketing programme. She also runs her own consultancy, Jo & Co.
Richard Dawson | DIGITAL MARKETING COACH | CHESHIRE DIGITAL MARKETING
Richard has over 20 years of experience and has helped more than 30 SME Business Owners successfully grow their business to the NEXT LEVEL using the latest digital marketing best practice. His clients tell him, that as well as helping them to successfully grow their business, he give them lots of great advice, helped them focus, help them keep an eye on the bigger picture and not get distracted! He also works with Digital Marketing Agencies and Service providers to enhance their offering to clients and add value to what they do. He also writes about Politics and Digital Campaigning.
David Edmundson-Bird | PRINCIPAL LECTURER IN DIGITAL MARKETING & ENTERPRISE ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR: DIGITAL INNOVATION | Manchester Metropolitan University
David is Principal Lecturer in Digital Marketing at Manchester Metropolitan University, where he leads a team of specialist digital marketing academics and runs a number of digital communications programmes. He is co-author of 7th edition of Digital Business & E-commerce Management with Dave Chaffey and Tanya Hemphill. David is Chair of Global Judging Standards for Don’t Panic. His role is to ensure objectivity, transparency and consistency across the judging panels for all Don’t Panic assets, and to provide a quality assurance process in the judging process. He set up Manchester Met’s first part-time MSc in Digital Marketing in 2007, their first full-time MSc Digital Marketing Communications in 2016 and Manchester Met’s Global E-Learning MSc in Digital Marketing. David founded Manchester Met’s Agency Life programme in 2012 to enable students to experience live work skills in the workplace very early in their course. He has enjoyed several spells in academia as well as senior management roles in the digital sector, helped to set up Manchester’s second web design agency back in 1995, He sits on the Board FutureEverything and is a trustee of The Education Trust.
Adam Guerguis | Head of Operations | Airbnb
Based in Montreal, Adam has more than 10 years in search marketing and growth hacking experience. His latest job is Head of Operations for airbnb organic growth. He also has been working with very exciting brands in several industries, languages, and sizes like Yahoo!, MSN, Groupon, UNHCR, Skrill, Paysafe card, and others. Adam is also a digital marketing trainer, guest speaker, mentor, digital marketing blogger since 2010, and a MSc. Marketing Candidate. In his free time, Adam likes coding and reading about marketing,
Tom Hill | Head of Digital Marketing | Pretty Little Thing
Tom has over 10 years of experience in Digital Marketing, having worked at independent agencies, network agencies, and in-house. After starting his career agency-side, working on accounts such as Asda, Halfords, Sofology and Ronseal, he made the move in-house, firstly leading the Digital Marketing and Media teams at Sky Bet, before his recent move to Pretty Little Thing, where he is the Head of Digital Marketing. He has previously guest lectured at Leeds Beckett University and Leeds Trinity University, and has also acted as an advisor to multiple ad tech companies. Tom brings a wealth of experience across the entire spectrum of Digital Marketing channels.
Katrina Kerr | Chair of Chester Bid and Trustee | Storyhouse
Katrina works as a marketing consultant, primarily in tourism and is a trustee of Storyhouse and Chair of the Chester Business Improvement District, an organisation dedicated to positioning Chester as a city that offers the highest all round quality of life. She is also a board member of the Tourism Society. Prior to that she was CEO of Marketing Cheshire, she reformulated the business model to ensure the longevity and commercial viability of the organisation, overhauled its digital channels and footprint, developed its relationship with Visit Britain. Katrina has also worked for a number of multinational communications agencies - Ogilvy, J Walter Thompson, Publicis on campaigns for clients such as HSBC, Unilever, American Express, Reckitt Benckiser and the UK Government. She started her career in HM Diplomatic Service where she worked in Paris and Brussels. Katrina studied languages at the University of Bristol and has an MBA from INSEAD.
Trond Lyngbø | SENIOR SEO CONSULTANT | Search Planet
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.
Denise Maskew | Head of Digital Ecommerce | Talk Talk
Jack Norell | Consultant
Erin Portsmouth | Director of Corporate Affairs | Oldham Cares
Erin is a Chartered public relations practitioner who started her career in private sector marketing and communications consultancies, but for the past eleven years has worked in the National Health Service. She is currently Director of Corporate Affairs at NHS Oldham Clinical Commissioning Group where she oversees a portfolio including communications, engagement, public affairs, equality and diversity, organisational development and governance. She has a Masters degree in public relations, and served on the Chartered Institute of Public Relations North West Group Committee as a volunteer for ten years, also holding a three year term as Chair. She was appointed to the Board of Trustees of homelessness charity Emmaus Salford in 2017.
Matthew Tasker | Head of Digital Channels | United Utilities
Matt leads the digital channels team at United Utilities, the largest listed water company in the UK serving more than 3 million homes and businesses in the North West. Matt’s team looks after digital customer service including social media and webchat, digital marketing and optimising the customer experience, and the performance of a range of digital customer journeys across various platforms. Prior to working at United Utilities, Matt started his career as a business management graduate at RWE npower before moving on to hold various marketing and digital roles at npower, Vax and British Gas. Outside of work he’s also the chairman of Hale Barns Cricket Club.
Anna Wilson | Head of Digital Development | Tangerine
Anna works day-to-day to build brands online, creating audience-first social media activity integrated with the wider digital footprint to deliver meaningful results for the brand. Over the last 12 years Anna has worked with the team to create multi-award winning campaigns with brands like Yorkshire Bank, Thomas Cook Sport, Virgin Media, Pizza Hut Restaurants and Specsavers.
Claire Worthington | Managing Director | Village Web Company
Claire is a web developer, mentor and digital skills trainer from Stockport in Greater Manchester. She is passionate about digital exclusion and encouraging diversity in the tech industry. Claire is the founder of Village Web Company CIC, a social enterprise, which builds websites and delivers a range of training courses.