Rory Mason

Rory didn't start out in a marketing agency. He started behind a television camera, picked as one of five new entrants from 1,500 applicants by Screen Yorkshire, on sets like Emmerdale, Life on Mars and Shameless. The marketing came later, and self-taught.

He learned the craft on the agency floor, in PR and content and then as Head of Social at Search Laboratory, on brands like Sony, Superdry and O2. Ten-plus years in, he'd built enough of a view to want his own agency.

That agency was Ground Up Digital, a social enterprise doing SEO, PPC and web. In 2022 it merged with Kyle Findley and Zac Evans' 21 Degrees, a creative studio, to create 21 Degrees Digital. Rory's phrase for it was mixing "the geek with the chic": his side brought the search and performance firepower, theirs brought the storytelling. He ran the merged agency as Managing Director, then became CEO in 2025.

Most of his attention now goes to AI, and to one unfashionably practical question: what does it actually change for a marketing team, versus what just sounds clever on a stage? He lives in the tools, builds them, and pressure-tests them on his own businesses before they reach a client. That's the thread through his talks as Rory Vs Machines and The Brick Factor, the podcast he hosts, where founders build LEGO while talking real business.

Beyond 21 Degrees he's Managing Director of RoR Group, an angel investor, and a board member at Social Enterprise Yorkshire and Humber. He's also open about being dyslexic and having ADHD. Both have kicked him up the arse plenty of times, but he still calls them his superpower: the thing that lets him work like a squirrel driving a Ferrari.