Squaring the Circle > Speakers > John Straw
John Straw

John Straw

Chairman, Digital Advisory Board, Thomas Cook; Web Advisory Board, Premier Farnell

 
 
 

A rarity. An energetic digital entrepreneur with 17 years deep digital experience. One of a handful in the UK, wanting to provide the benefit of his experience to businesses making the challenging leap from analogue to digital.

His past 11 years have been in Search; specifically:

  • Founder and CEO of Netrank, one of Europe’s first SEO agencies specialising in corporate clients. Netrank was sold to LBi in 2008.
  • Founder of SEO platform Linkdex in 2009. Raised $3m in VC from London and Silicon Valley. Linkdex provides the competitive insight to understand why and how to get on top of search engine natural listing

Previously

  • Interse Corporation, San Francisco, VP European Operations. Interse specialized web analytics. The company was purchased by Microsoft in 1997 for $160m.
  • Revnet Systems, Huntsville, Alabama, co founder, VP Marketing. Revnet product email management software for marketeers. The company was purchased by MessageMedia in 2000 for $44m (subsequently bought by Doubleclick and then Google).

In 2006/2007 John created two consumer facing websites – www.itsmymarket.com – a classified ad site and a price comparison engine www.savebuckets.com.
John is also Chairman, Digital Advisory Board, Thomas Cook and on the Web Advisory Board, Premier Farnell.