It’s the time of year for voting for everyone’s favorite SEMPO board of directors. A lot of the fun is watching the evolution of the candidates from this year. This year’s SEMPO Board candidates are a bit less diverse then last years and I believe a bit less globally inclined.

This is especially important to the growth of the JAR Group. We would like a SEMPO organization that is growing it’s global presence and it ability to help its members look towards the future of the search marketing space.

As such, there are a few candidates who I recommend whole heartily….

Massimo Burgio is among the pioneer group of SEMPO founders and has always been involved with the Global Committee. He has Chaired that committee since 2005, and the European Working Group, that he started Chairing at the end of last summer.

In June 2006, with the early group composed by Nacho Hernandez, William Alvarez, Alexandre Kavinski, and Sara Holoubek (I joined in August of 2006), he launched the SEMPO Latino Group that he Co-chaired until the end of last year.

With the hats of both SEMPO Global and SEMPO Europe, He has been a vocal supporter of the recent launch of several SEMPO Working Groups across the world, including SEMPO Canada, Scandinavia, Spain and now also Italy and Central Eastern Europe, with several other groups (Australia, Germany, France, Netherlands and more) in the pipeline.

Finally, just to complete his SEMPO resume, he personally designed and launched, with the support of SEMPO Global, the multi-author search blog sempoglobalsearchblog.com, where apparently we are having a new wave of Latino bloggers.

I am also highly recommending Bill Hunt and Chris Boggs (currently on the SEMPO Board), and David Szetela (the previous Global Co-Chair).

Also, Sara Holoubek (a current Board member), even if not a Global Committee member anymore, has always been committed to a global vision for SEMPO, and she is a great supporter and a pioneer member of SEMPO Latino, a lover of all things Brazilian, along with having been very instrumental in advising me on the rapid growth of the JAR Group, from 2 people to now over 14 and growing.

Outside the Global Committee, only two candidates have international profiles, hence I ask you to consider them too among your voting preferences. These two people are Damien Anderson (from the UK, the only other non-US candidate beside Massimo) and Chris Copeland (who represents a truly worldwide company with offices across all Europe, Asia and Latin America).

Lastly, I personally recommend the return of Jeffery Pruitt to the board. He is one of the truly great class acts I have had the pleasure to directly work with.