From a quiet proclamation in 2021 to a growing global network, a reflection on why culture is no longer secondary—but central to power, leadership, and international systems.
April 28 means something very real to me.
April 28, 2021. I was standing there, wearing a mask, receiving the proclamation of Chief Cultural Officer Day. It was one of those moments that felt both important and strangely quiet at the same time. The world was still slowed down, people distant, everything a bit uncertain.
Faces were covered. Conversations shorter. Less human, at least on the surface.
But I remember thinking the opposite.
The mask didn’t silence the human race. It actually made something clearer—how much we depend on connection, meaning, and culture. Not as something nice to have, but as something essential. Something that holds together when everything else starts to shake.
That day, for me, was not really about recognition. It was more a moment of realization.
I often go back to a conversation with Dr. Anthony J. DeNapoli, a voice of clarity and support, sadly lost during the plague of 2020. After reading my book, Chief Cultural Officer. 8 Pillars toward Sustained Global Influence, he told me something very direct: “Roberto, I like the idea of making corporate America think about how culture is important for international relations. It will not be easy… but count on me.”
He was right. It was not easy.
When we started shaping the Chief Cultural Officer Speaker Series in 2021, with a few people who believed in the idea, it became clear very quickly how difficult it is to move from words to structure. Transparency, ethics, culture, education, wellbeing, diplomacy—everyone agrees with these concepts. But when you try to make them operational, part of a system, part of leadership, that’s when resistance appears.
I understood later how real his concern was.
Another moment that stayed with me came later, during a dinner in Rome, in the shadow of St. Peter’s Basilica, with Mgr. Janvier Yameogo. We were speaking about the book, and he connected the idea of the Chief Cultural Officer with the African concept of Ubuntu.
Not as theory. As something lived.
He spoke about how a person exists through others, how harmony, dignity, and peace depend on the way we take care of relationships—not only with people, but with nature, with ancestors, and with something greater than ourselves.
That conversation stayed with me because it made something very simple clear: what we are building is not new. It’s just being brought back into systems that forgot it.
In 2022, at the Italian Senate, I said I wanted to build a network of 200 Chief Cultural Officers in two years. I underestimated the time. Not the vision. It will take longer—probably four more years. And that’s fine. Some things need time to be real.
I’m grateful to those who helped make that April 28 possible—especially Paola Baraya and Dale V.C. Holness—for bringing the idea to the Broward Commission and turning it into something official.
Today, when I look back, I don’t see only a ceremony or a document. I see the beginning of a direction. Slow, but persistent.
If you take a moment to read the Proclamation—not only the book—you may find your own answer to a simple question: why does it matter today to develop real skills in culture, ethics, education, and international understanding?
Look around you. The answer is already there.
What is happening now is something I didn’t force. It’s something that is naturally taking shape. Universities are starting to step in—not to change the idea, but to carry it further, to give it structure and continuity.
This is where it becomes real.
Not just a course. Not just a title.
A network.
A new edition of the book is coming. And this fall, the course will enter a different phase—more grounded, more connected, ready to grow the right way.
More soon.
Roberto Masiero
