A very special year for CIM-Cyprus Business School

As CIM-Cyprus Business School marks its 45th anniversary, CEO Yangos Hadjiyannis talks about the significant impact that CIM has had on Cyprus and its education sector over the past five decades and looks ahead to a bright future.

This year sees CIM celebrating its 45th anniversary. Tell us about the institute’s history, mission and goals.

CIM was set up to promote the science of marketing in Cyprus and abroad. Over the past 45 years, it has evolved into a major international centre for the development of business education in many diverse fields: Management, Accounting & Finance, Shipping, Law, Digital Marketing, Hospitality Management and others. CIM-Cyprus Business School has already given more than 10,000 students the opportunity to acquire qualifications of the highest standards and to excel both personally as well as professionally. CIM programmes are unique in that they combine theory and practice, giving students the necessary tools for securing employment or for gaining promotion in their present job. CIM offers high-quality education and expert training, tailored according to your individual needs, be they your personal career, family or other commitments. CIM’s distinguished lecturers and tutors begin with an initial evaluation and then structure a learning programme around the specific strengths and weaknesses of the students, guiding them towards pre-set goals. In this way, in an increasingly competitive market, CIM offers the highest employability prospects and, by extension, the highest possible return on investment.

What makes CIM-Cyprus Business School a unique institution?

There are many reasons. A lot of our students are individuals who had missed out, for one reason or another, on the opportunity to study after graduating from secondary school, yet who always had the desire to pursue learning, gain further knowledge and qualifications, and advance their careers. Though CIM serves students of all ages and all walks of life, we still exclusively offer evening classes – in order to cater for the needs of working individuals. We still place great emphasis on combining theory and practice and remain committed to offering the best and most accessible education at the most affordable fees.

More generally, how would you describe its contribution to Cyprus' education and business community?

CIM-Cyprus Business School has been instrumental in the development of the Cyprus economy in the past 45 years. It was the first Business School to be established in Cyprus and the first Institution to offer marketing and management as a science. With more than 10,000 alumni leading companies in Cyprus and abroad, the impact of CIM is undoubted and it has been vital for the Cypriot business world. Moreover, CIM has organised more than 300 executive training programmes for Cypriot and multinational firms, offering them the chance to reskill and upskill their employees.

Why do you consider your collaboration with the University of West London to be of such importance to Higher Education in Cyprus?

We are extremely proud of our collaboration with the world-renowned University of West London since 2011, which enables our students in Nicosia and Limassol to acquire British qualifications without disrupting their professional career. The University of West London (UWL) and The Cyprus Institute of Marketing are collaborative partners in the delivery of the BA (Hons) Business Studies with Marketing (3 years); BA (Hons) Accounting and Finance (3 years); LLB (Hons) Law (3 years), the MSc in Digital Marketing (12 months full-time/24 months part-time) and the MA in Luxury Hospitality Management (12 months full-time/24 months part-time). The collaboration with UWL celebrates its 12th anniversary this year and is thus the longest and most successful collaboration between a Cypriot and a British Higher Education Institution. Furthermore, UWL is the No.1 UK University operating in Cyprus, enjoying a higher ranking than any other.

This year, as you have already mentioned, CIM officially became CIM-Cyprus Business School. Tell us more about this transition.

We were founded as an Institution focusing on marketing but today we offer a wide array of programmes, cutting across all business sectors. As such, it was a natural evolution to change our name from The Cyprus Institute of Marketing to The Cyprus Business School, to better represent our current identity. On the occasion of our 45th anniversary and after many years of careful strategic planning, we completed our transformation into The Cyprus Business School in January and the future is looking brighter than ever before!

What other plans can you reveal?

2023 is a special year, not only because we are celebrating our 45th anniversary and our evolution into The Cyprus Business School, but also because it has signalled the launch of three new, highly innovative projects: the first MA in Luxury Hospitality Management in collaboration with the University of West London; the first CIM Distance-Learning MBA; and the start of our collaboration with the Cambridge Judge Business School (CJBS) for the delivery of its Executive Education programmes in Cyprus and the broader region.

(Photo by Michael Kyprianou)

This Special Feature first appeared in the July edition of GOLD magazine. Click here to view it.