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About us

The leading provider of CIM, ISM, and CMI qualifications, Professional Academy delivers high quality training in management and leadership, sales, marketing and digital marketing.

As a one-stop-shop, Professional Academy offers the complete package. From professionals looking to gain new qualifications to companies seeking in-house training, we provide custom-designed courses, exceptional trainers, one-to-one support and an advanced online learning management system.

Whether you are interested in finding a little more out about the company's history, ethos or learning about the staff that make the company tick you can find the appropriate information below:

About Professional Academy overview

Professional Academy was founded in 2002 by Martin Hutchins. After a decade working in learning and development, he saw the potential for a new kind of training company – flexible and people-focused, offering accredited qualifications grounded in a practical understanding of the challenges we face in the workplace.

Gaining CIM and CAM Foundation accreditation in 2002, followed by CMI and ISM accreditation in 2004, the Academy steadily expanded beyond London and Cambridge, establishing study centres in Jersey, Leeds, Exeter and Manchester. 

From the beginning, Professional Academy has led from the front as a standard-bearer in terms of course quality and an innovator in terms of course delivery. Always looking for new ways to improve the learning experience, our enthusiastic early adoption of new technology has led to the development of our own, world-leading online learning management system.

Having offered in-company training to clients around the world via a sister company since 2011, in 2014 we decided to centralise both our personal and our corporate learning and development services under the Professional Academy brand. Professional Academy in-company training puts our expertise at the disposal of employers, whether they’re interested in accredited qualifications or bespoke, targeted training courses.

In 2015, the next stage of Professional Academy’s growth and expansion began with the launch of our International Partner Network, extending our global reach and making the same high standard of professional training available around the world.

We effectively connect you to the knowledge you need to succeed in your career.

-- Respectful: Acting with humility to appreciate all theories and sentiments

-- Empathetic: Relating with compassion and sensitivity to others’ emotions

-- Engaging: Providing a new perspective to divert, excite and enthuse

-- Empowering: Building confidence and courage through knowledge

-- Supportive: Steering each other to overcome adversity and accomplish goals

-- Collaboration: Uniting expertise to accomplish our goals and achieve success

-- Inspiring: Demonstrating openly all that is possible

-- Enabling:Offering accessible tools and knowledge to achieve your potential

Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) - since 2002

Institute of Sales & Management (ISM)- since 2004

Chartered Management Institute (CMI) since 2004

We believe that everyone can gain new skills, new qualifications and renewed confidence by studying with us, and we’re passionate about making it happen.

For us, learning and development is all about what comes next – what are our students going to achieve with their new skills, and what kind of legacy will our in-company training create for our clients? Our focus is always ensuring through high quality products and services we deliver the greatest possible impact.

Can-do attitude

We believe that training is not just about learning new skills or acquiring new knowledge. It’s about gaining confidence, taking on new challenges and realising your full potential. We’re ‘can-do’ people, and we’ve found that our attitude tends to rub off on everyone we work with.

Customer service

Putting the customer first is central to our philosophy. We want to make studying with us as stress-free and effective as possible. Working with us should always be a pleasure. From flexible course and study options to help and advice whenever it’s needed, we make sure that your needs come first.

Our success is founded on the unique combination of cutting-edge expertise in learning and development and a real-world understanding of the professional disciplines we cover. 

From head office to our tutors and support staff, we have decades of accumulative experience in professional learning and development. But we don’t just know all about the courses we offer in sales, management and leadership, marketing or digital marketing. We understand the industries themselves and the real challenges that practitioners are facing, now and in the future.

Because we combine training excellence with real-world business expertise, we’re able to design, develop and deliver learning and development programmes that teach relevant skills and make theory real and relatable.



Business Continuity Policy

We are fully committed to providing the highest standard of service to our learners and have created a Business Continuity Policy to support learners in the event of an incident that may have a significant impact on the operation of our training and apprenticeship provision. This Policy outlines how we shall act to mitigate the effects of any such event.