Judging Panel

Founder at How Great Marketing Works

Finola Howard

Finola Howard is an award winning Marketer who believes passionately in the impact great marketing can have on any business, no matter what size. She works with clients all over the world from Ireland, the USA, UK and as far away as Sierra Leone. See https://ie.linkedin.com/in/finolahoward

She agrees with David Packard that “Marketing is too important to be left to the Marketing department” and in 1999, she created a marketing process that made it easy for businesses to see how everything connects to marketing in the business. This process has worked for so many of her clients and now she has brought this tried and tested process to an online space. For just $12 a month you can learn how to build an effective marketing process in your business. You just have to choose to want to.

Digital Account Manager at Design by Structure

Heather Nolan

A Galway girl with a New Jersey twang who loves exploring the world of digital. From social listening, to content marketing, to website development … there are so many tools companies and individuals can use to share what they do with the world! Currently working with B2B companies, bringing brands to life online. Always on the look out for new and exciting projects.

Founder & CEO at Islandbridge Brand Development

Marketing Manager at TTM Healthcare

Barry Doherty

A marketing professional with over 16 years experience across a number of sectors including retail, media and recruitment. Currently Marketing Manager for a leading specialist healthcare recruitment company TTM Healthcare where I manage the online and offline marketing activity in Ireland, the UK and Europe.

Senior Director – Head of Social, Digital & Content at Ogilvy

Jai Kotecha

Jai has over fifteen years’ experience in digital and marcomms, having worked with industry-leading clients and agencies in Sydney and London.

Jai Joined be Ogilvy as Associate Director in October 2012 where he is heading up agencies pan European clients including Unilever, Philips, and General mills. Jai is now Senior Director running the Digital, social and Content practice within the agency.

Jai is an active member of the IAB and DMA Social Media council and has previously been involved with WOMMA UK. He has a keen interest in social media measurement and best practice.

Group CEO at The Connacht Tribune

Dave Hickey

A local media professional based in Galway, specialising in improving communications within and about the communities served by our news media.

If you want to reach an engaged audience of over 100,000 readers or listeners, in print, on air or online across Galway city and county contact me.

I’m passionate about connecting communities and that’s what we do best in our newspapers, on radio and increasingly online. Our aim is to provide a voice for the voiceless in our communities and to shine a light on all that is important to all communities in Galway, good and bad.

Our brands are the most trusted in Galway when it comes to local news and we work hard to maintain the trust earned over 100 years.

Founder of  www.Fabmol.com

Fabio Molle

Fabio successfully co-founded FunkyChristmasJumpers.com, a Christmas Jumper ecommerce store with sales in over 50 countries.

With 8 years experience in ecommerce and online marketing, Fabio Molle is now providing a consultancy service for all aspects of ecommerce and online marketing. If you have dreams of launching a ecommerce site and don’t know where to start or you are looking for ways to grow your ecommerce sales Fabio can help you get on the right track and get results.

Previous awards include Sockies and Digital Media Awards for his work on online marketing campaigns

Content Manager at ennclick.com

Deirdre McArdle

Former technology journalist now working as a content manager at ENNclick. Deirdre writes everything from website content and scripts for videos to product sheets and white papers. She uses her journalistic background to write thought leadership articles for clients to feature in industry magazines. Deirdre also manages clients’ social media profiles and provides training and ongoing mentoring. She featured as a judge for the OMiG awards in 2015. Deirdre has an English degree from UCC, a post-graduate diploma in Journalism from Griffith College Dublin and a diploma in Digital Marketing from the European Institute of Communications. In 2015 she launched Ireland’s first fibre and craft magazine called Olann and – www.olannand.ie.

Experiential Client Director at Mediaworks

Aaron Chalke

With a cross media background, Aaron has specialised in Digital media over the past five years, working on clients like McDonald’s Restaurants of Ireland, Lidl, Liberty Insurance and KBC Bank. Aaron has recently shifted focus – now an Experiential Client Director in Mediaworks. With an increasingly cluttered media world, Aaron’s role is to help create disruptive brand experiences and use media to amplify this with consumers.

CEO at Bookbuzz.

Ron Immink

Ron’s current activities combine social media, narrative, story telling, dialogue learning, collective wisdom, peer-to-peer and social learning with innovation, change management, strategy and ultimately helping businesses to succeed.

He is a father of two, entrepreneur-in-residence, business book geek, entreprenerd, author, CEO of Bookbuzz and co-founder of www.smallbusinesscan.com.

He has worked on projects on entrepreneurship and innovation in USA, Holland, Ireland, UK, Italy, Finland, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Estonia, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Serbia and Montenegro.

His books focused on entrepreneurship and strategy have sold over 125,000 units in Ireland and the UK.

Digital Marketing Manager at taxback.com.

David Clayton

A creative, technical, analytical, professional with a deep understanding of evolving online behaviours. Twelve years of immersing myself in the digital industry has given me expertise in developing online strategy to convert moments into leads, customers & advocates.

Managing Director at outlier.ie.

Alan Haverty

Outlier is an Irish-owned and operated design agency based in Dublin. We specialise in Responsive Web Design, Digital Marketing and Brand Creation . We have over ten years of experience in digital marketing and brand development for national brands and international companies.

Outlier is devoted to developing simple, engaging website designs. Our principle message is that we try to take ‘hand-built’ principles and apply them to digital environments.

Head of Digital at Aviva.

Pauric Lenehan

Responsible for digital across the General Insurance, Health and Life & Pension companies of Aviva Ireland.

Director at Expert Digital Marketing Ltd.

Graham O’Shea

Expert Digital Marketing Ltd are a full service Digital Marketing Agency providing SEO and SEM services to corporate and SME clients in Ireland and Worldwide.

Founder & Director at Digital Marketing Institute.

Anthony Quigley

Anthony is an entrepreneur with 30 years experience developing, managing and leading successful businesses. He is a senior board-level advisor and mentor to early venture companies and start-ups.

Anthony is Co-Founder and Director of Digital Marketing Institute, the global certification standard in digital marketing, with courses taught in over 50 countries. Previously he has either founded or held director level positions in Code Institute, eWare, Xantal, iQuate, Microsoft, Net Results and Web Kitchen among others.

His clear understanding of how digital technologies can transform business has led him to be a sought after international speaker on the topic. He is also regular contributor to press, TV and radio discussions on changes that affect the business sector.

Senior Planner (Comms & Experience) at Target Mc Connell’s

Shane O’Leary

As a senior planner with one of Ireland’s largest advertising agencies, Shane specialises in channel and experience strategy.
Operating across departments in a specially created role, he consults on distribution, platform choice and experience planning and also works on wider brand strategy for brands including Vodafone, McCain, An Post, Arnotts and others.
Previously, Shane has worked in agency & on client side across numerous strategy areas. One of his specialities is helping brands understand how to execute sponsorships effectively across multiple channels.
Shane is a prominent commentator on Irish marketing in the media, and his passions include sport, psychology, books, technology and journalism.

Creative Director at Newslang

Seán Earley

Award winning Digital Marketeer working in New/Slang (PSG). Executing exciting, innovating and award winning for clients such as HB Ice Cream, Lyons Tea, Life Style Sports, LIDL, Bayer, Activis, Repak, Keogh’s, Bord Gáis Energy and Boehringer Ingelheim.

Sean develops and implements digital strategies for top international brands on social and helps them to build connections with consumers online.

The world of social and digital constantly excites him as offline/online consumer behaviours evolve, blurring the lines between online PR, social media, advertising and marketing. “There is no line”.

As a founding member of New/Slang he leads a team of digital marketeers who’ve already picked up seven awards since October 2014 for their work.

He also has a strong media background in Radio and Design. With experience as a Production Manager, Graphic Designer, Radio Producer, Copywriter and Web Admin roles for two top Dublin Radio stations.

Director at Handmade Marketing.

Barry Hand

Senior-level, digital strategy and eCommerce leader with a unique blend of marketing and technology experience and expertise. Responsible for double digit growth, multi-million euro budgets and high performance teams.

Head of Digital at Atomic

Hugh Curran

Hugh has over ten years experience in marketing communications roles and holds a B.Comm from NUI, Galway. In the course of his career, Hugh has worked in both agency and client roles with a range of leading Irish and international brands. Before joining Atomic he was in a senior client service position in Ireland’s largest digital agency, In the Company of Huskies, where his skills were used on campaign planning and management activities including strategic planning for brands such as Guinness, Carlsberg and Coca-Cola. Hugh is also a member of the IAB Mobile and Social councils. Now the Head of Digital in Atomic, Hugh’s role is to oversee digital strategy and ensure clients received best in class digital executions.

Business Development at Maximum Media

Tara Moran

Tara graduated from NUIG and UAH, Madrid with a Bachelor of Commerce International (Spanish). On graduating she worked as the Sales and Marketing

Manager for a Galway based hotel before she moved to Dublin to obtain her

MSc. in Marketing Practice from UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School. From there, she spent 2.5 years working as the European Event Manager for Alltech, managing over 200 events across their European division and working on the company’s title sponsorship of the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games in France in 2014. She joined Maximum Media in January of 2015 to develop and sell digital led content solutions and strategies to brands that want to advertise across the companies expanding network of sites: JOE.ie, Her.ie, SportsJOE.ie, HerFamily.ie, JOE.co.uk.

Marketing and Admissions Officer at Dublin Business School

Andrew Mooney

My passion in life is to help people as much as I can.

In my current role in DBS I aim to help students make the right choices when it comes to education. Coming back to education can be a daunting experience and students need a guiding hand in choosing the right course for them. This is where I come in.

Digital Marketing Manager at IMS Marketing

Elaine Potter

Digital Marketing Manager for IMS Marketing, Ireland’s only dedicated technical marketing company. With industry experience in Product Design, Sales, Education and Marketing I bring a vast range of knowledge to my company and clients. Specialising in digital marketing and with a passion for content marketing you can read some of my posts on the IMS Marketing website at www.imsmarketing.ie or on live blogs at OMiG events.

Account Manager at Google

David McGinley

A Google Display Network (GDN) specialist account manager in Google Dublin. Having worked and studied in Galway, I know the level of talent and business thats there first hand.

Founder of Congregation

Eoin Kennedy

Congregation or #cong15 is a one day ‘un-conference’ style digital media and technology festival with a range of events taking place in Cong, Co Mayo from Friday 26th to Sunday 28th November 2016.

The festival is centred around the Saturday unconference focused around the theme of ‘The Future’ against the backdrop of rich and deep past heritage. Fridays activities will focus on ArchTech or technolgies based around storytelling of the past while Sunday will see guided tours of ancient monuments and 3,000 year of battle scenes. Expression of interest to participate in Congregation 2016 are currently open.

This is the fourth year of the event with over 120 experts from all over Ireland and overseas expected.

Media account Manager at Linkedin

John Heavey

As a Media Account Manager I help my clients value and leverage their brand to engage the best people through effective storytelling. Our mission at LinkedIn is to connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful. Our vision is to create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce. Let me know how I can help you.

Head of Relationship Marketing in HubSpot’s Dublin office.

Lisa Toner

Manager, Content Marketing Strategy, Sales Products.

Responsible for building out the content marketing playbook for HubSpot’s Sales products.

Partner with Fuzion, an award winning PR firm with offices in Dublin and Cork.

Greg Canty

I am a qualified accountant who spent 5 years in a small to medium sized practice, before moving to industry with Moog a US manufacturing subsidiary and then to the drinks industry initially working for a subsidiary of Guinness, Deasy & Co. Ltd (wholesalers and soft drink manufacturers).

I started as Financial Controller and moved into the General Manager role, which I absolutely loved.

I spent 3 years with Guinness in Dublin, meeting fabulous people and learning about how global brands, sophisticated marketing departments and large companies work.

I moved from there to Nash Beverages, which was a joint venture between Heineken and Nash Minerals.

In 2003 I teamed up with Deirdre Waldron as a partner of Fuzion where a fantastic team provide an integrated range of services including Marketing Consultancy, PR, Graphic Design, Web and Social Media Consultancy all with a practical, business edge – its a great and fun place to work!

Years ago I also had my own businesses including fast food restaurants and a chain of music stores around the country.

Besides working really hard I do a lot of Social Media training including lecturing with the Digital Marketing Institute. I love writing and you can find my ramblings on my Blog: http://gregcantyfuzion.com/

I have been busy !

My clients get the benefit of an owners mentality, an imaginative and very experienced business person who brings a really practical approach to Marketing & PR with the added bonus of Social Media expertise.

Founder of Social Media Summit Ireland & Digital Marketing strategist.

Samantha Kelly

Having built up a following of over 30k from engaging and interacting with people on Twitter, I know and understand the Twitter environment. I can connect you with the influencers and increase your sales and your brand awareness. Proven results and successful Kickstarter campaigns, trending topics and hashtags are a speciality. I excel at connecting people and creating a buzz around your events or campaigns.

Account Manager at Google.

Michelle Beirne

Working at Google for over seven years has given me the opportunity to help companies from all industries embrace digital and make it work for them. Some of the clients I’ve worked with include the UK Government, Nike, McDonalds and CRUK.

Helping prove the value of online is one of my passions and the every changing environment means I never get bored.