With a career spanning more than 25 years across sectors including EdTech, SaaS, telecoms and charities, Ricci Masero brings a wealth of experience and insight to the Chartered Institute of Marketing South East Committee.

As Vice Chair for Education, he is focused on strengthening the connection between students, universities and the wider marketing profession, helping aspiring marketers gain access to real-world opportunities and professional networks. In this interview, he reflects on his journey into the committee, the value of professional community, the evolving marketing landscape, and why meaningful industry connections matter more than ever.

What inspired you to join the CIM South East Committee, and what role do you play within the team?
With over 25 years in marketing, I've benefited enormously from the knowledge and professional frameworks, so joining the committee felt like the natural next step - a chance to give something back, and to do it in a meaningful, structured way rather than just occasionally posting into the void.

As Vice Chair for Education, my focus is on bridging the gap between academic life and professional practice. That means building relationships with CIM's accredited university partners across the South East, connecting students with initiatives like The Pitch and the CIM Marketing Club, and being a visible, approachable link between the next generation of marketers and the wider CIM community. It's a role that sits right at the intersection of my professional background in EdTech and my long-standing passion for developing talent - so it fits rather well.

How has being part of the committee impacted your career and understanding of the marketing industry?

Honestly, I wasn't expecting it to be as energising as it has been. Spending most of my career either freelancing or leading remote in-house teams means you can end up in a professional bubble. Working alongside marketers from different sectors, specialisms and career stages gives you a much broader perspective on the industry than you'd ever get from your own desk. It's also sharpened my thinking around education and professional development. Engaging with students and academics reminds you both how much the fundamentals matter, and how fast the landscape is shifting.

What upcoming initiatives or projects are you most excited about for the South East Region?

The Annual Conference at Henley Business School was actually my first event with the committee and what a way to start. The theme of Leading the Digital Future brought together a genuinely impressive mix of academic and professional speakers, and the energy on the day was brilliant. I came away from it both proud of what the team had pulled off and already thinking about how we build on it. So I'm delighted to say we'll be doing it all again later this year, and I'd encourage anyone who missed it to keep an eye out for details.

We also have some more localised social events in the pipeline - which I'm perhaps even more personally excited about. The conference is a flagship and fantastic, but there's something special about smaller, more informal gatherings where conversations go deeper, and connections form more naturally.

On the education side of things, what excites me most is the ongoing work of connecting students to real professional opportunities - through The Pitch competition, Marketing Club activities and our relationships with accredited degree partners. There's a real gap between what students learn and what employers expect on day one, and every meaningful connection we make helps close it. That's genuinely motivating.

In your opinion, what makes the South East Region unique in terms of marketing opportunities and professional growth?

The sheer variety, really. In my own career, I've marketed for craftspeople, entertainment businesses, fitness brands, charities, telecoms, tour operators, property investors, SaaS platforms and EdTech - and a lot of that has been without leaving the region. The South East is home to an incredibly diverse business ecosystem, from start-ups and agencies to established enterprises, and that creates rich, varied opportunities for marketers at every level.

From an education perspective, we also have some excellent universities producing strong marketing talent, and I think one of the South East committee's most important jobs is making sure those students know about the professional community that's waiting for them when they graduate. The region is well-connected, ambitious, and genuinely welcoming.

If you could give one piece of advice to aspiring marketers looking to join CIM, what would it be?

Don't treat it as a badge - treat it as a community.

The qualification matters, and the Chartered Marketer designation is genuinely valued. But the thing that will accelerate your career isn't the letters after your name; it's the conversations you have, the events you attend, the mentors you find, and the habit of continuous learning you build. CIM gives you the framework for all of that, but you have to actually use it.

And if you're a student reading this - enter The Pitch. Seriously. Do it. The experience of working on a real brief, presenting to professionals, and being seen by the marketing community is worth more than almost anything else you'll do in your final year.

What’s one marketing campaign you always remember – whether you loved or hated it?

Given my background in technology and a career spent helping businesses explain complex things clearly, I have a deep appreciation for campaigns that make the complicated feel simple and human. What I'll always remember is IBM's work from the early 2000s. At a time when B2B marketing was largely dull by design, IBM made bold, intelligent work that spoke to genuine problems without dumbing things down or resorting to hollow jargon. One TV ad in particular has never left me. A tech worker is solemnly listing everything the new on-demand IBM eServer can do "It can monitor itself, manage itself, optimise itself, protect itself... practically heal itself." Someone asks how it got there. He raises an eyebrow, a flicker of something between pride and mild existential dread crossing his face, and delivers the line "Maybe it ordered itself." and then cracks up laughing.

In 2004, it was a brilliant piece of deadpan wit - a sarcastic punchline that also happened to contain an entire vision of the future. Twenty years on, with AI agents autonomously executing workflows, self-configuring systems, and tools that genuinely do things nobody explicitly asked them to, that subtle hint of terror feels considerably less sarcastic. IBM planted the idea as a joke. We appear to have taken it literally.