Stella Wannberg, Rising Star
On 26 May 2022 the European Search Awards named Stella Wannberg of Pixel Nordic Rising Star. What the award rewards, what the jury saw, and what Stella said about it.
An award for a steep curve
The European Search Awards are held every year for companies, campaigns and people in SEO, PPC and content marketing across Europe. Entrants are nominated, usually by colleagues or clients, and a jury from the industry picks the finalists and then the winners.
Rising Star is the award for one person under 30. [1]
The jury looks for a steep curve: responsibility taken early, clear results, knowledge shared with the workplace and the wider industry, and obstacles overcome on the way. [2]
The 2022 winners were named at a gala at La Llotja de Mar in Barcelona on 26 May. [3]
Rising Star went to Stella Wannberg of Pixel Nordic, with Yagmur Simsek of Re:signal taking silver. [4]
It was great to see an energetic individual looking to constantly learn and who takes the initiative to go out and find the information for themselves. Stella is clearly a positive individual which is reflected in the feedback from her wider team. Her achievements are fantastic and are backed by a detailed appendix. Congratulations!
Results, and the people around them
Stella was 24 and had worked in SEO for just over four years, two and a half of them at Pixel Nordic. She started in outreach at the agency Brath in Örnsköldsvik, and joined us to broaden her work.
The nomination rested on two things. Her client work: good results, no client lost and partnerships that grew. And what she did for other people, inside Pixel Nordic and outside the industry.
She started Pixel Education, which gave students of digital marketing guest lectures, access to SEO tools and evenings with people from the industry. In 2021 she mentored four people through Mitt Livs Chans, a programme for people with a foreign background and a post-secondary education who have yet to find work in their field in Sweden.
In her working hours at Pixel Nordic she also did pro bono SEO for BRIS, the Swedish children's rights organisation, to reach more of the children and young people who need help or answers to hard questions.
Reading what clients, colleagues and other people I have met in my career so far had to say about my achievements, but also about me as a person, really moved me. In fact, the award is as much theirs as mine, because without them I absolutely would not be here today
The name she did not hear
Stella was grateful just to make the shortlist and had not expected to win, given how many skilled people the industry has. For the rest of the evening, she said, people kept coming over to congratulate her, competitors among them.
When the jury read out the citation, I was sitting talking to the people at my table. I was barely listening, because I was completely set on not winning. Suddenly I see my Dutch table neighbours start shouting after the jury named the winner, and they burst out: “That's you!”
Four years on
Stella is a senior SEO consultant at Pixel Nordic today. Asked in 2022 for her best SEO tip, she did not give a tactic.
I usually challenge my clients to look at marketing in a more holistic way. That is, not to work in silos with their channels, but to weave the investment in SEO together with, for example, PR or influencer marketing
Still how we work
The tip has aged well. The off-site work that builds a brand's authority in search is the same work that shapes what agents recall about it, so it cannot sit in a silo of its own.
Sources and notes
Award categories. The current rules, read in September 2026. Rising Star nominees must be under 30 on the date of the awards ceremony.
European Search Awards, award categories (opens in new tab)Back to reference 1
Interview with Stella Wannberg. 2022. Published in Swedish on Pixel Nordic's former website; the quotes here are our translation. What Rising Star rewards, the jury's citation, the nomination, Stella's background and her quotes.
European Search Awards 2022, event photos. The gala's date and venue, as the organiser's album gives them: "26 May | La Llotja de Mar | Barcelona".
Don't Panic Events on Flickr (opens in new tab)Back to reference 3
2022 Winners. Stella Wannberg, Pixel Nordic, winner of Rising Star; Yagmur Simsek, Re:signal, silver.
European Search Awards, 2022 winners (opens in new tab)Back to reference 4