Speakers

Jon Beattie
Strategy Director, Marker

Jon Beattie established The Outfit in late 2000 after leaving Hong Kong based start up Asia Online. In 2006 The Outfit was merged with Flux Design to form Marker. Jon is currently Strategy Director and co-founder of Marker, a demand creation agency focused on measurable marketing around the core principles of user centric design and technological excellence.

For over 9 years in the industry, Jon has worked with a range of companies from multi-nationals that include Sony Computer Entertainment, BMW, MINI, and Pepsico to software and Internet start ups. Jon’s ability to span business strategy, technology and interactive marketing provides a unique perspective to projects.

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Guy Baxter
Search Program Manager, DoubleClick

Guy Baxter is program manager for paid search at DoubleClick, a company that has been at the forefront of digital marketing since 1996.  Like everyone at DoubleClick, Guy’s role is to make sure his clients get the best return on their advertising dollar.

His particular area of expertise is in search and he provides search services for agency clients and global DoubleClick publisher clients.  Indeed, Guy could be described as one of the industry’s search ‘originals’, having worked in search since 2002 at AltaVista, and subsequently Overture where he identified the potential of small to medium sized businesses as an untapped market for search.

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Matt Collis
Head of Account Management, 247 Real Media

Matt Collis is the Head of Account Management for Australia’s largest independent search marketing company, 24/7 Real Media.

Collis joined 24/7 Real Media in February, 2005 as Account Manager and was promoted in May 2006 as head of the team servicing 24/7’s growing client-base.

During his time at 24/7 Real Media, Collis has directly managed the strategy and growth for several pan-Asian and Australian focused online sites.  This has included a variety of commercial strategies through a range of verticals including online travel, dating, insurance, e-commerce, and finance.

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Aaron Shear
Partner, Boost Search Marketing

I have been in the search industry since the late 90’s, no not 10-20 years. My career started early in the search Day’s at Inktomi, where I supported large search portals. For example, MSN, AOL, iWon, Hotbot, CNet too name a few. After Inktomi I became a freelance consultant. I consulted for a few of the Top SEO’s around 2002 time frame; obviously the market has changed since then.

After consulting I joined a small SEO firm called SEO Inc as the CTO. At SEO Inc. I successfully optimized some of the largest clients including IGN, Sony, VEGAS.com, Beaches and Sandals Resorts to name a few. Even though SEO Inc was a ton of fun, I still wanted the ultimate SEO challenge. I moved on as the global head of SEO for Shopping.com an eBay company. This challenge was an interesting one, how do I optimize a site with 50 million products?

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Liz Fraser
Business Manager, MSN New Zealand

Liz Fraser is the New Zealand Business Manager of leading news portal MSN.co.nz.

She is responsible for MSN’s overall business performance and ongoing development of format, local content and partnerships.

Fraser has worked in broadcast media for 14 years and was most recently Senior Programming Manager at TVNZ, where she oversaw the purchase of content for New Zealand’s main free-to-air television channel.

She also held the role of National Sales Manager, managing TVNZ’s relationship with advertisers and the advertising industry.

Che Carbis
Account Director - Asia Pacific, Hitwise

Ché Carbis is Account Director, Asia Pacific for Hitwise, the world leader in online competitive intelligence. He is experienced in online marketing, affiliate marketing and content development across a range of industries.

Ché has assisted more than 300 companies, from small start-ups to multinational blue chip organizations, in growing their online presence to achieve solid returns from their online channels.  Working closely with Hitwise R&D, Ché is involved in the development of unique, timely online intelligence products that meet the changing needs of his clients across the region.

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Rod Jacka
Managing Director, Panalysis

Rod Jacka is the Managing Director of Panalysis, a specialist web business analytics company. Rod holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Business and Technology from the University of New South Wales and has over 13 years experience in management and consulting in the Internet industry. He has worked in industries as diverse as education, retail and manufacturing and has consulted on developing the business outcomes for a large number of major websites.

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Thom James
Online PR Director, Bullet PR

Thom James is Bullet PR’s Online PR Director, providing clients with counsel on corporate blogging and online reputation management.

He believes that, as content experts, PR practitioners are becoming increasingly important to how organisations are perceived online.

Thom’s commentary on online reputation management and the New Zealand blogosphere has been published in the likes of Management Magazine and DLB.

Gary Jensen
General Manager, NZS.com

Gary came to the NZS.com team as General Manager in April 2007 with extensive experience in international online markets.

Over the last six years Gary has built and led the successful online gaming company, Kiwi Gaming Limited, filling the role of General Manager through to the company's sale in early 2007. The Kiwi Gaming Group is known within the international gaming market as a leader in niche gaming, being nominated for "Marketing Campaign of the Year 2006" at the EGaming Review Magazine Industry Awards in London.

Gary has spent much of the last three years speaking at and attending seminars, industry conferences, events and awards, as well as publishing articles in the online gaming space.

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Jacqui Jones
Lead Search Strategist, NetConcepts

Jacqui was responsible for the streamlining and development of Netconcepts foundation SEO Methodologies ensuring successful delivery to US, UK and New Zealand clients such as The Discovery Channel, BudgetTruck, AA Online, Realestate.co.nz and more.

Beginning her Internet career in 1996 with Telecom Xtra she has gained solid experience in e-commerce, email marketing, natural and paid search, online media placement and social media marketing. Jacqui ran her own e-commerce and Internet marketing agency for 6 years and later became product manager at email marketing company MessageMedia.

Jacqui is now focused on marketing Netconcepts in New Zealand and educating marketers on Internet marketing strategies including the natural search channel. 

Martin Kelly
Director, Search Engine Room

Martin Kelly is Director of Search Engine Room. He created the conference and brand in early 2005 and began writing a regular newsletter on Search late last year.

There have now been several Search Engine Room conferences, all of them attracting strong industry support and attendance.

Martin's background is primarily in journalism and corporate communications. He is passionate about producing quality content, whether on stage or in print.

Apart from Search, Martin is heavily involved in the online travel marketing and distribution sector through the TRAVELtech and No Vacancy conferences, the www.TravelTrends.biz website and newsletter.

Nicholas O'Flaherty
Managing Director, Bullet PR

A 15 year veteran of international marketing and communications, Nicholas O’Flaherty is the Managing Director of full service PR and Marketing Communications consultancy, Bullet PR, which he founded in 2000.

The sole PR practitioner on the Marketing Association’s e-Marketing Network Executive, Nicholas is a strong advocate for the role of communications professionals in an organisation’s online strategy.

In the last six years, Bullet PR has focused increasingly on the social media environment and today us one of New Zealand’s foremost online PR consultancies.

Jon Ostler
Founder, First Rate

Jon founded First Rate in 1999 and has driven its growth to become one of Australasia’s leading contemporary online marketing agencies. First Rate specialises in search, email & performance marketing and has offices in Sydney and Auckland.

Jon originally comes from the UK where he worked for British military intelligence, advising many of the UK's top defence companies and agencies on classified projects. After retiring from military intelligence in 1998 he put his skills to work on the web.

Willie Pang
Head, Yahoo Search Marketing Australia and NZ

Willie Pang is the Head of Yahoo! Search Marketing for Australia and New Zealand. He joined Yahoo! Search Marketing in 2006 and was appointed to his current role in November 2007. He is responsible for the company’s operations throughout the region and brings a decade of experience to the role.

Willie has an outstanding record of success with the company and has helped drive the business’ growth and strengthen its network of advertisers in the region. Prior to becoming Head of Yahoo! Search Marketing, Willie was the company’s Sales Director for Australian and New Zealand.

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Steve Pickering
Interactive Manager, Tourism Holdings

With a background in brand marketing, Steve came to focus solely on the web space from 2003 with responsibility for growing the online channel for Tourism Holdings Ltd (THL), New Zealand’s premier tourism company. 

Over the past three years Steve has led a project to move the majority of THL's  40 B2C & B2B websites from basic brochure-ware to fully integrated e-commerce websites, providing  customers with the ability to plan and book their holiday experiences real-time.

Steve and his team are driven to deliver a quality user experience for their customers and an equally strong ROI for the business. THL work with a number of search marketing suppliers and are committed to both organic optimisation and paid search placement to maintain a competitive advantage. 

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Dr Grant Ryan
Chief Scientist, Eurekster

Grant is Chief Scientist and a co-Founder of Eurekster, Inc. Grant founded the Internet search company Global Brain.net in 1998 (acquired by NBCi, now operating as enterprise search company S.L.I. Systems) and social networking company Real Contacts in 2001. He is a director of the New Zealand Government's $150 million Venture Investment Fund (VIF) and has been a director of the Foundation for Research Science and Technology which allocates over $450 million per year. He has a degree in Engineering and a PhD in Ecological Economics.

Dr Shaun Ryan
Chief Executive Officer, SLI Systems

Shaun has 10 years of experience in search technologies. As a co-founder of SLI Systems, he was one of the developers of the company's unique "Learning Search" site search technology.

Shaun was also an original founder of GlobalBrain, his first site search technology company bought by one of the world's leading portals Snap/NBCi.com in 2000, which he and his fellow founders bought back and later renamed SLI Systems.

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Mark Sceats
Director, SureFire Search

Mark Sceats is the Managing Director of SureFire Search, a specialist search marketing firm he established in 2002. Previously SureFire was called Viz Marketing but recently changed its name after taking on investors to fund growth.

Prior to establishing SureFire Mark worked for one of the top international consultancy firms, KPMG Consulting. Before this he was with Zivo, a leading Australasian web development business. In addition, Mark has had extensive sales and marketing roles in New Zealand and overseas.

This real world commercial experience enables him to understand client needs and develop appropriate pragmatic solutions that are strongly focused on lead generation and conversion for clients. Whilst passionate about the Internet as a marketing medium Mark is pragmatic and has a healthy cynicism about Internet hype.

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John Schofield
Managing Director, The Internet Bureau

In the year 2000, two John’s got together (having the same name meant they saved money on business cards) to establish a small start up company called The Internet Bureau. Today, less one John and with a growing team of suspects, TIB is now the largest online media planning and buying company in New Zealand.

John Schofield is a strong champion of online and is considered a veteran in the digital arena at the mature age of 36. With a long list of ‘online firsts’ under his belt John is leading the charge for online creativity, accountability and innovation.

John has heavy involvement with industry initiatives, including tutoring online media planning for the advertising industry’s recognised training programme (CAANZ/AUT Communications School); he is also invited back year on year to be a judge at NZ’s prominent media advertising awards (CAANZ Media Awards) and enjoys being part of the odd industry committee or two.

Nathan Stewart
Managing Director, Alkemi

With a solid background in Financial Planning, in 1996 Nathan begun helping companies improve the way they acquire and retain customers using the Internet. With over a decade of experience in Internet Marketing, Nathan has been appointed to the Board of multiple Web Development and Search Marketing firms around Australia.

Nathan is also a frequent lecturer at Universities around Australia including RMIT and La Trobe University, and last year was the Judge of the AIMIA Industry Awards (Best Business/Ecommerce Category).

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Paul Webster
Senior Sales Manager, Google NZ

As Senior Sales Manager, Paul currently leads Google NZ's Ad sales business and is responsible for managing relationships with key advertisers and agencies, as Google expands its local presence.

Paul has over twenty years of successful international business development experience within the technology and sporting goods sectors.

After managing Salomon Ski NZ's marketing for several years, Paul held Internet related business development positions in the UK & Europe, for over ten years, with companies including Level 3 Communications Inc, BT plc and The Royal Bank of Scotland plc.

He holds an MBA with Distinction from the University of Canterbury and completed his six month MBA project/thesis with SLI Systems.