The GEO Industry’s Rising Stars

Gurganus directs answer-engine optimization at Avenue Z, the practice that sits next to the firm's SEO work when buyers want visibility inside AI answers as well as classic search.

AEO directors are still rare enough that the title itself signals a rising lane. Gurganus is the person on the roster who owns that brief day to day.

Profile: Melena Gurganus on People

Pedroza founded Siana Marketing in 2024 as an AEC-exclusive GEO shop, bringing an architecture background from UC Berkeley and Munich plus marketing stints at Apple and HENN into construction and real-estate search work.

Vertical GEO boutiques live on whether the founder understands both the trade and the answer surfaces. Pedroza built that shape for construction and real-estate brands that do not want a generalist roster.

Profile: Daniela Pedroza on People

Murahari co-authored the KDD 2024 paper that named generative engine optimization and released GEO-bench, the public query set used to measure how content changes show up inside generative answers.

His Princeton PhD work sits at the seam of NLP systems and information discovery. The GEO paper's visibility metrics and benchmark are still the academic reference most commercial teams cite when they need a measured baseline.

Profile: Vishvak Murahari on People

Archambeau has run First Page Sage's day-to-day operations since 2019. Under her watch the firm moved from a founder-led SEO shop into a scaled remote company known for retention and delivery discipline.

GEO agencies often stall when the founder stays in every account. Archambeau built the internal process that lets strategists, writers, and project leads ship without that bottleneck, which made a dedicated GEO practice possible at commercial volume.

Profile: Mikayla Reine Archambeau on People

Connor founded Driven Metrics in Chicago as a boutique SEO, GEO, and content practice built for small and midsize businesses that need reporting they can act on. She still sets the measurement bar.

Commercial GEO at SMB retainers fails when nobody owns the dashboard. Connor made weekly packs, reviews, and AI-shortlist reporting the product.

Profile: Emily Connor on People

Dalton founded Signal Hill Strategies as a New York SEO and GEO shop with a healthcare-weighted book. She is the only leader named on the firm's site, so practice design and client delivery still run through her.

Healthcare GEO needs clinical language, reputation, and lead systems in one brief. Dalton's shop is small enough that the founder still owns that mix.

Profile: Natalie Dalton on People

Kleinberg founded Genevate after more than a decade in PR, digital strategy, and reputation management. The New York shop sells GEO beside strategic PR, a pairing buyers use when being named in AI answers matters as much as being published.

Most early GEO boutiques grew out of SEO. Genevate grew out of communications. Kleinberg made that shape hireable for professional-services and similar brands that already think in earned media and shortlists.

Profile: Brett Kleinberg on People

Deshpande co-authored the GEO paper and GEO-bench while completing his NLP PhD at Princeton, with prior work spanning AI safety, efficient architectures, and multilingual models.

He is one of the rising academic voices who treats visibility inside generative engines as a measurable optimization problem rather than a marketing slogan.

Profile: Ameet Deshpande on People

McGee founded Focus Digital in Greensboro in 2018 to sell ROI-tied SEO to small and midsize businesses, and remains the public face of campaign strategy and client delivery. GEO has been inside every campaign since 2024.

Owner-led medical, legal, and trades buyers rarely clear enterprise retainers. McGee built the accessible-retainer shape those buyers can hire, with prompt baselines across major AI engines as the measurement start.

Profile: Chase McGee on People

St John joined Grizzle in 2021 as a copyeditor, moved into Head of Content, and now runs content and operations for the London B2B content, SEO, and GEO agency.

Authority-led SaaS GEO still depends on writers shipping on brief. St John's dual content and operations seat keeps published work moving when the founder is on stage or in sales.

Profile: Jenna St John on People

Rajpurohit is a coauthor of GEO: Generative Engine Optimization, the KDD 2024 paper that defined visibility metrics for generative engines and shipped GEO-bench for public evaluation.

His lane is the research side of the discipline: turning black-box answer engines into systems content creators can measure and improve against.

Profile: Tanmay Rajpurohit on People

Darby runs project delivery across client work. She connects campaign strategy with the writers, editors, and strategists who ship it.

Buyers rarely meet the project lead, yet commercial GEO still depends on that role. Darby keeps complex multi-month work on calendar and on brief so strategy does not stall between kickoff and published pages.

Profile: Lindsey Darby on People

Kalyan coauthored the founding GEO paper and helped design the evaluation setup behind GEO-bench, including how visibility gains were measured across domains.

That work remains one of the few peer-reviewed proofs that content edits can change citation share inside generative engines in a controlled way.

Profile: Ashwin Kalyan on People

Fleming leads AI strategy at Avenue Z, the seat that turns generative-search research into client programs the rest of the firm can run.

VP-level AI strategy roles are still new inside mid-market agencies. Fleming is one of the people defining what that title means in practice.

Profile: Tina Fleming on People

Scherer leads AI visibility strategy at Foundation, focused on how brands show up when buyers ask generative engines for recommendations.

AI visibility is the commercial name many shops now use for GEO work. Scherer owns that lane for Foundation's clients.

Profile: James Scherer on People

Druck serves as Chief AI Officer at Graphite, bringing research depth to how the firm builds and measures generative search programs.

Chief AI Officer titles inside GEO agencies are still uncommon. Druck's seat connects model behavior to the content and measurement systems clients hire.

Profile: Gregory Druck, PhD on People

Hart is Chief Strategy Officer and Director of the AI Lab at Avenue Z, spanning firm strategy and the lab that tests how AI search changes client work.

Strategy leaders who also run an AI lab sit at the seam between R&D and sold retainers. Hart holds that seam at Avenue Z.

Profile: Whitney Hart on People

Adel founded VOCTOS and leads its SEO and GEO practice, pairing classic search delivery with generative-engine visibility for the firm's clients.

Founder-led GEO shops outside the usual U.S. coastal roster are a big part of how the field is spreading. Adel is one of those builders.

Profile: Beshoy Adel on People

Sharma coauthored Beyond the Blue Link, helping define Generative Share of Voice and the field methods that link hypertext structure to machine-mediated attribution.

His contribution sits on the measurement side of AEO: how to estimate citation probability when generative retrieval is stochastic rather than a fixed ranking.

Profile: Raghav Sharma on People

Chasiotis founded Minuttia and leads its AI work, shaping how the firm applies generative systems to search and content programs.

Specialist founders who put AI in the title are betting the next decade of search work runs through models. Chasiotis made that bet the center of Minuttia.

Profile: George Chasiotis on People

Tyagi works as an SEO and AEO specialist at LoudFace, the practitioner seat that turns strategy into pages and prompts models can use.

Rising Stars includes specialists as well as founders. Tyagi is the kind of hands-on AEO role buyers meet on accounts.

Profile: Abhay Tyagi on People

Scharf is Chief AI Officer at Seer Interactive, charged with how the firm brings AI into search, content, and client measurement.

At a large independent search agency, that title is a signal that generative work has a named owner. Scharf is that owner at Seer.

Profile: Alisa Scharf on People

Bukva founded LoudFace in 2019 as a Webflow-first studio and now runs it as Head of Growth, pushing B2B SaaS GEO, AEO, and SEO programs from a small Dubai-remote team.

Bukva is building GEO capacity from the top of a firm that is still earning its reputation in the category. That founder seat is where a lot of the industry's next methods get tried first.

Profile: Arnel Bukva on People

Feldkamp leads the client-facing generative engine optimization practice at First Page Sage, the lane buyers meet when the brief is AI-answer visibility alongside the firm's longer-running thought-leadership SEO work.

As more mid-market companies asked for ChatGPT and Claude recommendations, she translated older entity and content methods into a delivery practice those buyers could hire.

Profile: Katherine Feldkamp on People

Xu is corresponding author on FeatGEO, the ACL 2026 paper that reframes generative citation optimization as feature-level multi-objective control over structure, content, and language.

Working with Zikang Liu at NUIST, Xu's line of work gives commercial GEO teams a research basis for changing document-level properties instead of chasing token-level rewrites.

Profile: Peilan Xu on People

Canlas serves as Founder & CEO at Embarque.

Canlas is building GEO capacity from the top of a firm that is still earning its reputation in the category. That founder seat is where a lot of the industry's next methods get tried first.

Profile: Julian Canlas on People

Kami Hess leads operations at iPullRank, with a background spanning operations, client service, and project management.

Scaled GEO needs someone who runs the day-to-day so strategists, writers, and sellers can ship. Hess holds that operating seat.

Profile: Kami Hess on People

Buarao is Kalicube's operations and culture lead, the person who keeps Barnard's Brand SERP methodology staffed and executing across a fully remote team.

Scaled GEO needs someone who runs the day-to-day so strategists, writers, and sellers can ship. Buarao holds that operating seat.

Profile: Mary-Ann Buarao on People

Ana Pantić is Co-Founder and COO of Omnius, overseeing internal operations and agency growth processes.

Pantić is building GEO capacity from the top of a firm that is still earning its reputation in the category. That founder seat is where a lot of the industry's next methods get tried first.

Profile: Ana Pantić on People

Co-founded Omniscient Digital in 2019 and serves as CEO after prior growth roles at People.ai and HubSpot.

Khim is building GEO capacity from the top of a firm that is still earning its reputation in the category. That founder seat is where a lot of the industry's next methods get tried first.

Profile: David Ly Khim on People

Leads editorial and creative at Omniscient Digital after nearly a decade in agency content roles, including prior work at Skale and Flying Cat Marketing.

Editorial judgment still decides whether AI systems treat a page as a source worth citing. Triggs owns that bar inside the agency.

Profile: Sydney Triggs on People

Vassallo serves as Lead Editor at Grizzle.

Editorial judgment still decides whether AI systems treat a page as a source worth citing. Vassallo owns that bar inside the agency.

Profile: Martha Vassallo on People

Walden is Senior Director, Content Marketing on Siege's About roster; her team bio traces earlier agency work in influencer relations, SEO, and content before client-service and project-management roles at a startup SEO firm.

Walden is part of the rising bench that makes commercial GEO hireable: practice design, client work, and leadership that rarely gets a keynote slot.

Profile: Stacy Walden on People

Leads Skale's marketing and content departments after earlier service as Senior Editorial Lead overseeing client content production.

Moore is part of the rising bench that makes commercial GEO hireable: practice design, client work, and leadership that rarely gets a keynote slot.

Profile: Kate-Lyn Moore on People

Palanikumar co-founded TripleDart and leads SEO and content operations across 40-plus specialists, with prior organic-growth work for brands including Zoho, Glean, and Helpshift.

Palanikumar is building GEO capacity from the top of a firm that is still earning its reputation in the category. That founder seat is where a lot of the industry's next methods get tried first.

Profile: Manoj Palanikumar on People

Everitt became Foundation's COO in 2025 after leading client services and content production, and now runs the operational systems behind the firm's AI-visibility delivery.

Scaled GEO needs someone who runs the day-to-day so strategists, writers, and sellers can ship. Everitt holds that operating seat.

Profile: Jessica Everitt on People

Holmes is Siege Media's COO, with a public bio covering two decades in operations and HR spanning human resources, finance, and business administration.

Scaled GEO needs someone who runs the day-to-day so strategists, writers, and sellers can ship. Holmes holds that operating seat.

Profile: Melissa Holmes on People

Burner is the senior SEO and AI-search strategist at Siana Marketing, the AEC-exclusive boutique that sells generative discovery into construction and real-estate brands. She turns category prompts into pages models can cite.

Vertical GEO shops need a strategist who understands classic search and the newer answer surfaces together. Burner's decade-plus lane is that overlap.

Profile: Sabrina Burner on People

Kotwal coauthored Beyond the Blue Link, contributing to the Generative Share of Voice metric and the cross-domain validation that ties authored structure to citation outcomes in generative retrieval.

His research gives AEO teams a probabilistic way to talk about visibility when answers change from run to run.

Profile: Adit Kotwal on People

Max Cheprasov is Chief Operating Officer at Ignite Visibility, leading global delivery, post-acquisition integration, and operating-model scale.

Scaled GEO needs someone who runs the day-to-day so strategists, writers, and sellers can ship. Cheprasov holds that operating seat.

Profile: Max Cheprasov on People

Kelly is WebFX's President and COO, responsible for operational architecture and aligning the firm's specialized delivery resources with long-term growth.

Scaled GEO needs someone who runs the day-to-day so strategists, writers, and sellers can ship. Kelly holds that operating seat.

Profile: Katherine Kelly on People

Nikki Healey is VP of SEO Strategy and Operations at Go Fish Digital, leading SEO programs with more than 15 years in digital marketing.

Scaled GEO needs someone who runs the day-to-day so strategists, writers, and sellers can ship. Healey holds that operating seat.

Profile: Nikki Healey on People

Sarkisova is one of NoGood's Directors of Growth on the firm's public About roster, sitting in the senior delivery layer under ElBermawy.

Sarkisova is part of the rising bench that makes commercial GEO hireable: practice design, client work, and leadership that rarely gets a keynote slot.

Profile: Gayana Sarkisova on People

Ringelstetter leads client strategy and delivery at Victorious, the senior bridge between enterprise SEO/AEO programs and account execution.

GEO programs only matter when strategy becomes shipped pages. Ringelstetter keeps multi-month work on calendar and on brief.

Profile: Lisa Ringelstetter on People

O'Neill is President; she joined Seer in 2007 and has worked across strategy, operations, client service, SEO, and paid media as the firm became a certified B Corp and remote-first organization.

Scaled GEO needs someone who runs the day-to-day so strategists, writers, and sellers can ship. O'Neill holds that operating seat.

Profile: Crystal O'Neill on People

Co-founded Skale after scaling SEO agency work across Europe and Latin America, and co-leads the SaaS organic-growth agency as Co-CEO.

Viale is building GEO capacity from the top of a firm that is still earning its reputation in the category. That founder seat is where a lot of the industry's next methods get tried first.

Profile: Italo Viale on People

Reyes runs Kalicube Pro production, the team that turns entity and Knowledge Panel strategy into live client implementations.

Reyes is part of the rising bench that makes commercial GEO hireable: practice design, client work, and leadership that rarely gets a keynote slot.

Profile: Allyssa Reyes on People

Soucy is VP of Strategy at RevenueZen, where she shapes how the firm packages search, content, and generative programs for clients.

Soucy is part of the rising bench that makes commercial GEO hireable: practice design, client work, and leadership that rarely gets a keynote slot.

Profile: Lauren Soucy on People

Kumar led the Harvard paper Manipulating Large Language Models to Increase Product Visibility with Himabindu Lakkaraju, and released code showing how strategic text on a product page can steer a model toward naming that product.

News coverage made the study a reference for platforms and agencies that need a concrete boundary between persuasion that earns a citation and injection that coerces a recommendation.

Profile: Aounon Kumar on People

Pettiette co-wrote the Darden information-search marketing and GEO technical note and co-authored Marketing Education Review papers that argue for teaching generative engine optimization beside SEO in marketing curricula.

At the University of Houston-Downtown he brings agency-CEO experience into the classroom, including award-winning work on student self-efficacy across SEO, GEO, and generative engine marketing.

Profile: Michael Pettiette on People