About ICM and our History

Established as a charity for global outreach in 1979, the Institute of Commercial Management (ICM) is the leading professional body for commercial and business development staff. ICM provides a wide range of professional qualifications in business, management and related vocational areas. Our programmes are designed to address and respond to the training needs as well as the personal development of Learners, whether entering or continuing to work within the wide and varied commercial sector. ICM exhibits best practice in responding to the academic and vocational needs of Learners by regular liaison and structured feedback mechanisms, thereby ensuring that we stay in touch with the needs of Centres and Learners. We apply rigour in the award of qualifications, inclusivity in assessment and examinations, accuracy and efficiency in the certification of all our Learners undertaking business, management and related vocational education programmes.

ICMs Vision, Mission and Values

Our Mission
To help progress people’s lives through providing affordable, inclusive and high-quality education all, including hard to reach Learners.

Our Vision
We endeavour to demonstrate the provision of quality education by ensuring that we comply with all legal and regulatory requirements, our vision is twofold:

• To ensure, with professional advice as appropriate, that ICM complies with all constitutional, legal, regulatory and statutory requirements.
• To understand and comply with the constitution and rules that govern ICM, and to review the constitution regularly (at least every three years) to ensure it is fit for purpose.

Our Values
ICM value transparency in the way we operate and in our charging structure.
We value fairness in how we assess our learners and in how we treat people.
We value honesty, accountability and integrity in how our charity is governed.

The ICM Senior Management Team

Mr John Caithness
Chair of Trustees

John is a retired specialist in employment taxes including share incentive schemes, profit extraction, tax efficient remuneration planning, efficient benefits and related tax and national insurance issues. As the Chair of Trustees at ICM since 2018, John together with the Trustee Board and ICM governance team has headed and supported change with the effect of building and maintaining a competent and highly skilled team.

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Mr Crescens George
Trustee

Crescens is a financial services professional with far reaching and extensive knowledge and skills as a specialist in, recruitment, learning and development, organisational development and generalist human resources and has been a Trustee at ICM since October 2020. His knowledge and skills have been attained during a progressive career both in global and regional organisations such as Mphasis - Zurich Financial Services, Ageas UK, Be Wiser Insurance and Wiser Academy. Crescens holds a CIPD Post Graduate Diploma in Human Resource Management (FCIPD), a BA (Hons) Business Management (Specialising in HR & Strategic Management), LEAN & Six Sigma (Green Belt Certified), Continuous Improvement Methodologies, HRMS & LMS Systems including E-learning Designing (SAP & Oracle) and Transactional Analysis (TA101).

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Mr Adair Ford
Chief Executive Officer

Adair is an accomplished Executive with 23 years global Investment Banking experience and 11 years in the Awarding Organisation sector. International negotiations with educational and non-educational sectors over the past 30 years has given Adair a unique insight into educational and business needs worldwide. Having worked in leadership roles at ICM, Adair became the ICM CEO in 2015. As the ICM CEO, Adair has created a highly skilled team committed to providing fit for purpose qualifications whilst supporting the growth and development of teaching institutions as they continue to meet the changing demands of local and global economies. Despite his international commitments, Adair continues to enjoy supporting local community projects in a voluntary capacity, particularly those related to archaeology and the arts.

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Dr Theresa Barlow FCIPD (She/Her)
Director of Quality and Organisation Development

Having worked in education, teaching, examining, assessment and STEM for over 25 years Theresa has worked with a broad range of Awarding Organisations.  As the Responsible Officer to Ofqual Theresa works regularly with regulators on research and recognition matters.  Theresa provides advocacy with international government-led consultations, committees and calls for evidence.  An experienced learning and development practitioner Theresa provides a strategic perspective applying critical analysis to organisational judgements and decision making on all levels of business. Theresa combines strategic insight and people expertise with commercial acumen strategies plans and approaches for positive organisational change. Convening key stakeholders and learning champions, building broader organisational understanding and ownership, whilst continuously facilitating learning and opportunities to improve and adapt governance to manage the company's strategy, performance and risk.  Academic qualifications include Postgraduate Certificate in Educational Assessment and Examinations from University of Cambridge, Postgraduate Certificate in Education and PhD from University of Southampton, MSc from University of Edinburgh, BSc (Hons) from University of Nottingham and CIPD Level 7 Certificate in Learning and Development.   Theresa remains passionate about STEM, welfare and ethical issues and in particular in the field of anthrozoology where she has most recently published a book in companion animal behaviour.

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At ICM, we continually engage with our Learners and Approved Centres. If you are an existing Learner or Approved Centre, we would appreciate you taking a moment to give us your feedback, using the appropriate survey below.

Thank you. Your feedback is very important to us.