The North East board of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) has strengthened its team as it continues to grow its presence in the region.
The board is chaired by Charlie Nettle, head of marketing and business development at AV Dawson and vice chairs, Veronica Swindale, founder and managing director of NESMA and Jonathon Sabarre, director of digital and communications at Newcastle University Students’ Union.
The newly strengthened board now consists of board members and ambassadors from across key local industries including: head of marketing at Nexus, Kerry Leng; senior marketing manager at Baker Hughes, Tom Nightingale; managing director at Scarab4, Jane Gatiss; managing director at Aegies Associates Ltd, Keith Blundy; marketing and communications officer, Shared Interest Society, Laura Carrick; head of marketing at GT3 Architects, Nicola Irving; and co-opted member, director at Bradley O’Mahoney Public Relations, Sarah O’Mahoney.
The group will be responsible for implementing CIM’s strategy regionally. This includes developing local partnerships across business and education, running a series of events, co-ordinating communications activities, supporting local members and raising CIM’s profile within the region.
Collectively, they bring a wide range of skills from a variety of backgrounds, adding significant value to CIM. The strengthened board represents marketers from across the region, supporting members through mentoring and CIM’s continuing professional development (CPD) programme. The body has increased its calendar of activity by offering members and non-members a series of networking events in the form of monthly breakfast meetings and a quarterly meet with drinks, along with events for aspiring marketers as well as senior marketers.
Charlie Nettle, CIM North East chair, said: “There is a huge opportunity to build a stronger marketing community in the region. With its trusted brand and comprehensive framework of underpinning qualifications, I feel CIM is the organisation to do this. I also believe it is important that as marketers we all align ourselves with our professional institute to ensure our industry is properly recognised for the role it plays in delivering sustainable growth for our region’s businesses. Over the last year, we’ve built a strong, capable and willing team who are committed to promoting CIM and the marketing professional, supporting membership whilst also identifying new ways to add value to the network.
“The introduction of new, regular events has seen a fresh focus and provides a perfect way for like-minded individuals to connect. We want to look at ways to continually represent CIM in the region and, as such, we have created a structure comprising of a business team and an education team to give each area a clear focus, with each team developing new ways to serve and attract current and new members.”
CIM has also built a strong training offer within the region. In 2018, CIM partnered with NESMA, the region’s leading centre for professional qualifications in marketing and communications and launched a number of open courses consisting of one and two day training sessions aimed at individuals, teams and organisations interested in building their skills across a range of key marketing disciplines.
Veronica Swindale, managing director at NESMA, said: “2020 looks set to be an amazing year for CIM in the North East. We have strong momentum and have unique opportunities to thrive and compete with other regions in the UK.
“We have built solid foundations and by partnering with NESMA, CIM boasts a range of training courses aimed at advancing skills from our Gosforth HQ meaning people do not have to travel outside of the region to further their knowledge.
“We have a team with fresh ideas who are eager to collaborate to help boost the profile of CIM in the region and as a board we have some great ideas and exciting plans for the year ahead.”
