Louise Parker, Head of Digital PR at Propellernet

As Joint Head of Digital PR, Louise began her career in traditional PR agencies before transitioning in-house at major fashion brands, eventually joining Propellernet in 2015.

Louise is well known in the industry for her niche TikTok content, which provided light relief to the digital PR community during lockdown. She is also the co-host of the top 40 charting Digital PR Podcast.

📢 Louise’s talk – Digital PR & AI: Simple Adjustments to Future-Proof Your Strategy

Will Waldron, UK Digital PR Manager at Connective3

Starting out in music PR, and now with over ten years’ experience in traditional and digital PR, Will is the UK PR Manager at Connective3, overseeing the strategy and delivery of PR activity with a team of 12.

Working with brands such as Ocado, Adobe, thortful and more, Will covers both B2C and B2B outreach, with a specific focus on organic and SEO performance.

Covering new business, marketing, and managing the UK PR team, Will is also experienced in technical PR and delivers award-winning campaigns for his clients.

📢 Will’s talk – Building More Than Just Links; How to Make Sure your Link Building Strategies Drive Success by Aligning Digital PR, SEO and Content 

Emma Carstairs, Senior Digital PR Strategist at Impression

Emma is a Digital PR Strategist at Impression, drawing from her four-year background in both agency and in-house settings. Her background extends across the realms of both traditional and digital PR, which she utilises throughout her clients PR strategies. Emma’s passion lies in catering to luxury consumer brands, where she thrives on implementing reactive strategies to position her clients as credible experts in their industry fields.

Notably, her approach has led her clients to secure coverage in renowned national and lifestyle publications. Some of the publications include The Independent, The Telegraph, Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Hello magazine, and more.

📢 Emma’s talk – Capturing Your Customer’s Pain Points to Build Brand & Drive Organic Performance

Sarah-Jayne Taylorson, Senior Digital PR Manager at Cedarwood Digital

SJ has over seven years of experience in digital PR, having worked both in-house and agency-side with a diverse range of brands—from well-known consumer names to niche industries like compliance and insurance.

Specialising in reactive PR, she leads the reactive digital PR offering at Cedarwood Digital. With a passion for creative, timely campaigns, SJ excels at finding ways to put clients at the centre of trending conversations, securing valuable links and supporting long-term organic growth.

📢 SJ’s talk – Put On your Thinking Cap(s): Six Hats to Inspire Digital PR Ideas

Rick Guttridge, Founder & MD at Smoking Gun (Official Master of Ceremonies)

With over 20 years of agency experience under his belt, Rick has worked on some of the biggest brand names in the world achieving front page client coverage on titles as diverse as the Guardian and Daily Star, major features on BBC peak shows and had clients trending on social channels.

Obsessed with proving the impact strategic PR can have on an organisation, his agency’s name embodies the search to find the irrefutable proof of success and he banned AVE in his team’s reporting some years ahead of the CIPR and PRCA’s stances.

He’s also passionate about business having a positive impact on society and on top of reduced rates for not for profits, a minimum of 1% of profit is given to charity every year. Having started out working in a full-service agency, he takes a holistic view of PR and its place in the marketing mix. This approach has proven invaluable as the media landscape has evolved at a rapid pace in recent years and he has embraced the opportunities created by new social media channels and the further convergence of PR and other disciplines such as SEO to build and defend reputations for.

Smoking Gun is the “Official Digital PR Strategy Partner” for Digital Superchats #16

Related Content:

Talks at Digital Superchats #16
Become a Delegate & e-Attend
Digital Superchats #16: Digital PR Strategy & Search Performance