Owing to the success of last year’s event, the format for HIVE ‘MCR is much the same. We have tweaked some timings, so we won’t be running into early evening this time but the structure is largely unchanged.
Charlie Whitworth will be moderating the Technical SEO Panel, Stephen Kenwright will be running the State of Search Panel and leading in with his own talk and James Hayward-Browne will be doing much the same with Digital PR.
We have the speakers below delivering talks on a range of topics from GoogleBot and the Future of SEO, to authenticity and confidence.
Anyone who came last year, will be glad to hear we have the same selection of food and refreshments available, so grab your ticket before they’re gone!
About Charlie Whitworth
Charlie is a renowned SEO with 15 years of experience at several agencies across the north west, covering a wide range of industries, platforms and campaign types.
He has delivered growth for brands such as Footasylum, Revolution Bars, NHS, Halfords, Envirofone and Missguided, and currently runs his own consultancy in Manchester.
He runs HIVE MCR, will be MC’ing the day and running the Technical SEO Panel
Technical SEO Panel: 11:50am – 12.35pm
About James Hayward-Browne
James is co-founder of creative PR agency Bottled Imagination.
A creative turned marketer, James has worked with national and international brands to help grow their organic search revenue.
Talk Title: Digital PR Tactics in 2025 – How People are Discovering Your Brand Using Social & LLMs
Digital PR Panel: 5.30pm – 6.10pm
About Stephen Kenwright
Stephen is strategy director at brand activation and creative content agency Ride Shotgun. He founded and exited search-first creative agency Rise at Seven; is a former in-house head of digital at the UK’s largest automotive retailer Pendragon PLC; and founded SearchLeeds, a digital marketing conference.
Talk Title: State of Search Service Providers in 2025
State of Search Panel: 3.15pm – 4pm
About Kirsty Hulse
Kirsty has trained over 50,000 people to be more confident. She founded her first company at 26, a marketing agency with global clients like Virgin Atlantic and IBM, which turned over nearly a million dollars in its first year of trading. She has delivered training programs to audiences of over 14,000 and her work has been described as “game changing”, “life changing” and from the thousands of people she has worked with, 100% of attendees would recommend her work to a colleague. She is also the creator of Confidence Live, a 1300 delegate conference that attracts some of the world’s leading speakers, wellbeing experts, comics and poets.
Talk Time: 10am – 10.45am
Do you ever feel like there’s a million things to do, but no way to keep it all together? This funny, engaging talk will tackle the chaos head-on with practical, no-nonsense strategies to help you focus, build confidence, and actually get things done.
About Mike King
Mike is an acclaimed international speaker covering SEO, content strategy, and the impact of generative AI. Innovating and elevating, he’s the Founder & CEO of the performance marketing agency iPullRank. Mike consults with companies all over the world, including brands like SAP, American Express, and HSBC. He delivers cutting-edge strategies and deliverables to a laundry list of promising eCommerce, publisher, and financial services organizations. He’s about to shatter everything you thought you knew about how modern search engines work with the launch of his debut book, “The Science of SEO.”
Talk Time: 10:50am – 11:45am
Probably no blurb needed there, is there? But stay tuned for more info.
State of Search Panel: 3:15pm – 4pm
About Barry Adams
Barry is a veteran of the SEO industry. As a specialised SEO consultant for news publishers, he focuses on delivering technical and editorial SEO services to news publishers around the globe. Barry counts some of the biggest media brands among his clients including The New York Times, News UK, The Guardian, FOX, Condé Nast, The Globe and Mail, Reach, Euronews, and The Independent. He is a regular speaker at conferences and events across the world, delivers annual guest lectures for local universities, co-founded the News and Editorial SEO Summit, and writes an irregular newsletter on SEOforGoogleNews.com.
Talk Time: 12:40pm – 1:05pm
Googlebot is a very eager crawling and indexing system. It’s nearly insatiable, trying to crawl all it can as quickly as it can to see what’s worth indexing. For many websites, you may need to guide Googlebot’s efforts to make sure the right pages are crawled and indexed and time isn’t wasted on URLs that don’t add value to your SEO efforts. In this talk, Barry Adams will show some tactics to employ that help focus Googlebot’s hunger on the right parts of your website.
Technical SEO Panel: 11:50am – 12.35pm
About Aleyda Solis
Aleyda is an SEO consultant and founder of Orainti -a boutique SEO consultancy advising top brands worldwide-, speaker and author. She shares the latest news and resources in SEO in the SEOFOMO News, the SEOFOMO Newsletter and Digital Marketing in MarketingFOMO, organizes the SEOFOMO Meetup series, provides SEO tips in the Crawling Mondays video series, and a free SEO Learning Roadmap called LearningSEO.io.
Talk Time: 2:30pm – 3:10pm
From AI Overviews inclusions to ChatGPT visibility and traffic behaviour, Aleyda will go through where we stand and share actionable tips to maximise your brand optimisation efforts to avoid being left out.
State of Search Panel: 3.15pm – 4pm
About Steve Paine
Steve is the English-language marketing manager, technical and copy editor at SISTRIX and he oversees the end-end process for all of the knowledge and data journalism content. “We use a journalistic approach to crafting useful, high-quality stories from our data.” Steve has a very long history in online content dating back to before the web was born.
Talk Time: 4:05pm – 4:30pm
Remember last year’s talk, where Steve shared the very latest search trends directly from the SISTRIX toolbox, particularly around fast fashion? Well expect more of the same but this focusing on brand and product visibility in AI Chat.
About Lou Ali
Lou has been working in the marketing industry for over 16 years. Over the last decade she has specialised in setting up and leading new Digital PR departments within SEO agencies that go on to create hugely successful, award winning campaigns that positively influence organic performance. Lou prides herself on leading happy teams that enjoy their jobs and is passionate about developing young talent and creating cultures that support employee mental health.
Talk Time: 4:35pm – 5:00pm
Lou will explore why empathy is a crucial role requirement, particularly within Organic Search. She will discuss how understanding the pain points and needs of target audiences can help build strong brand reputations and drive success. Lou will also emphasise the importance of collaboration across teams with different perspectives, skill sets, and approaches. While working together can be challenging, especially with diverse ways of thinking, she’ll share practical tips on how to foster better communication and cooperation to achieve the best results.
Digital PR Panel: 5:30pm – 6:10pm
About Lisa Paasche
Lisa Paasche was the Founder and CEO of Award Winning SEO & Digital PR Agency Verve Search. She sold Verve Search to Omnicom Media Group in 2017, and exited the business in January 2021. She is now a Mentor, Advisor and Non Executive Director to Agency Leaders and entrepreneurs
Talk Time: 6:10pm – 6:40pm
Lisa will explore the neuroscience behind authenticity and how being true to yourself can lead to greater success. She will uncover the scientific principles that show how authenticity positively impacts decision making, trust and positive working relationships.
About Sophie Gibson
Sophie has spent the last 7 years working SEO agency-side, and is currently the Technical SEO Director at StudioHawk. Her favourite place is being knee deep in data trying to unravel SEO problems in an audit, making sure those technical foundations are in place in order to support a businesses growth online.
Technical SEO Panel: 11:50am – 12.35pm
About Ray Saddiq
Ray is the Global Head of Marketing at Rise at Seven. He is an organic growth specialist. With extensive experience across in-house and agency environments, Ray specialises in both Social and SEO strategies to deliver impactful results. His background spans marketing, organic social media, and organic search, making him a go-to thought leader for crafting strategies that connect brands with their audiences from the FYP to the search results
State of Search Panel: 3.15pm – 4pm
About Beth Woodcock
Beth is a Senior Technical SEO Executive based in Manchester, known for her drive, self-motivation, and dedication to continuous improvement. She is focused on advancing her career by building technical skills, including studying HTML, JavaScript, and CSS, and actively engages with the SEO community as a mentor for Women in Tech SEO. Beth regularly attends industry events such as Brighton SEO and The Marketing Meetup to stay at the forefront of the field. Passionate about the evolving nature of search, she thrives on exploring new tools, optimizing workflows, and collaborating with the next generation of SEO professionals, aiming not just to stay ahead of the curve but to shape it.
Technical SEO Panel: 11:50am – 12.35pm
About Tabby Farrar
Tabby has spent the last 9 years agency-side, specialising in digital PR and on-site content strategy, and is currently Head of Search at Candour. Her PR campaigns have won international coverage and links for clients in a host of industries, from global banks and industry-leading software providers to small independent retailers.
Digital PR Panel: 5.30pm – 6.10pm
About Chris Green
Chris Green has been a search marketer and trainer for over a decade and is one of the most renowned SEO experts in the UK. He is a Senior Consultant with Torque Partnership, helping enterprise clients build SEO
Technical SEO Panel: 11:50am – 12.35pm
About Hana Montgomery
Hana is the founder & Managing director of Shout Bravo, a Digital PR and Content Marketing agency based in Manchester. With her background in journalism, Hana focuses on creating content that catches the attention of the right audience, at the right time. Hana is a regular speaker at UK and global conferences covering digital PR, content and link-building topics, with always hands-on tips you can take and try the next day.
Digital PR Panel: 5.30pm – 6.10pm
About Rosa Mitchell
Rosa is a multi-award winning digital marketing professional with over ten years’ experience in SEO, digital PR, and content creation. Rosa currently oversees connective3’s Manchester office, managing a large team of creative professionals. In her career, Rosa has worked across a variety of different projects, from stand-alone campaigns to long-term strategic roadmaps, for brands including Nike, Wren Kitchens, and Ann Summers. She combines her analytical skills with her love of creativity to create concepts that work for many industries, including e-commerce, finance, law, and travel.
Digital PR Panel: 5.30pm – 6.10pm
Expert analysis of the state of technical SEO in 2025, from four of the industry’s finest. Tech SEO is a big conversation point right now with the impact of AI inevitably the elephant in the room, but our panel will discuss how this channel is more important than ever. Expect a serious deep dive into the latest auditing techniques, tools and processes that could supercharge your campaigns and how we can use technology to complement technical SEO rather than replace it. With Sophie, Barry, Beth and Chris on the panel, you’ll want to take notes.
Agencies are evolving rapidly, but in which direction? Stephen’s session will explore how brands are engaging with agencies today. Are they relying on them more or turning to alternative solutions? He will explore the impact of AI, shifting contracts and KPIs and what is shaping organic search as we head into the second half of the decade.
What is the state of play for organic search marketing in 2025? Stephen will be moderating this panel of organic search experts to dive into alternative views and perspectives of the state of search marketing. We won’t get away with not talking about AI and with one of generative AI’s biggest advocates on the panel, why should we? We will be covering this, discovery engines and how they feed into the organic search eco-system, the latest changes to the algo and much more. And, let’s face it, there will probably be developments that need discussing between now and May 15th – so we will be covering the latest trends and the state of search come May.
Our stellar Digital PR channel will have some serious topics to cover given recent developments, listen to the thoughts of four incredible agency DPRs. Expertly moderated once again by Bottled Imagination’s James Hayward-Browne and with four of the best digital PRs in the business making up the panel, this is set to be insight packed. If you have any questions for our panel, just get in touch!
