About
Carolyn Shelby is Vice President, Strategy at NorthSide Metrics, where she advises executive leadership teams on SEO strategy, AI-driven discovery, platform growth, and content governance across complex digital environments. Her work centers on how organizations are represented, cited, and evaluated by search engines, AI platforms, and the decision systems that increasingly sit between businesses and their customers. She also leads CSHEL Search Strategies, her executive advisory and thought-leadership practice serving platform and PE-backed businesses. Her career spans three decades at the intersection of infrastructure, content systems, and enterprise strategy. She co-founded one of the earliest commercial ISPs in the United States, later led SEO for ESPN and global Disney properties including StarWars.com, Marvel.com and ABC News, and served as Director of SEO at Tribune Publishing, where she drove a 166% increase in Chicago Tribune search traffic and scaled its in-house digital agency from 9 to more than 50 people. She is a strategic advisor to Yoast, a keynote speaker at events such as State of Search, SMX Paris and PubCon, and a monthly columnist for Search Engine Land and Search Engine Journal.