Optisearch founder Louis Riat-Bonello, 27, from Beckenham, is a finalist for Emerging Leader of the Year; winners named in Milton Keynes on 19 November.
A 27-year-old from Beckenham who set up his own marketing agency four years ago is one of the finalists for Emerging Leader of the Year at the National Young Business Leader Awards 2026.
Louis Riat-Bonello is the managing director of Optisearch, which he founded in 2022. The winners will be announced at the awards final on Thursday 19 November 2026 at Unity Place in Milton Keynes.
Why he started it
Asked what the shortlisting means to him, he went back to the reason the business exists:
“I started Optisearch because I saw how many good local businesses were invisible online, losing customers to bigger brands simply because they weren’t showing up. Being shortlisted is a real honour, and it belongs to my team and the clients who’ve trusted us to help them grow.”
He shares the credit with a team that now numbers six. The agency works on search advertising and SEO: getting a business to show up when someone nearby types what they need into Google, either through paid adverts or by ranking in the ordinary results.
Who the clients are
The agency says it started out helping local businesses get found and now works with businesses across the UK and abroad, among them tradespeople, care homes and professional services firms. It has more than 60 clients. On his own site, louisriatbonello.com, the case study he puts first is a psychiatric clinic in Florida.
What the agency says it delivered in September
Optisearch puts a number on its work. For September 2026, across all of its 60-plus clients, the agency says it helped small businesses generate, track and attribute 3,554 new enquiries from Google marketing. In its words, that “created around £5 million in quoted work, and £1-2 million in sales so far”.
Those are the agency’s own figures, counted across its client list; we have not seen the underlying data. The point it is making is that it follows a lead from the first click through to the job being won, rather than reporting clicks and stopping there.
The final
According to Optisearch’s announcement, the National Young Business Leader Awards celebrate the next generation of business leaders driving innovation and making a difference in the business community. Emerging Leader of the Year is the category Louis Riat-Bonello is in. The result comes on 19 November at Unity Place, Milton Keynes.
What it means for Bromley businesses
For anyone running a firm in Beckenham or elsewhere in the borough, the argument behind Optisearch is a familiar one: a good local business can lose work to a bigger name simply because it does not appear when people search. Louis Riat-Bonello says he is available to talk about the shortlisting, and the agency can be reached through its website or on 020 4572 2042.
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Louis Riat-Bonello 15 October 2026
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