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The Certified Management Consultant: CMC, the Mark of a Professional

When you see “Certified Management Consultant” or the initials “CMC” following a consultant’s name, you know that he or she meets strict professional requirements for membership in the Institute of Management Consultants (IMC). The IMC is the certifying body for the management consulting profession in local, regional, national and international spheres.

Founded in 1968, the IMC is the product of combined efforts by principal associations and societies in the profession that established management consulting as a self-regulating profession meriting the same public confidence and respect as medicine, accounting, or law.

The IMC provides the essential attributes of professionalism needed to achieve this aim including:

•	A publicly-acceptable process of verifying the competence of individual practitioners.
•	A code of conduct governing professional practice.
•	An organization of professionals devoted to the advancement of the profession, to administer its programs and maintain its standards.

Purposes of IMC

The primary purpose of the Institute of Management Consultants is to assure the public that members possess the independence, ethical standards, and professional competence required for membership. The IMC helps ensure standards that will create greater public confidence in the management consulting profession along with recognized qualifications to practice. Additional and significant purposes of the IMC are:

•	To provide opportunities for consultants to improve their technical and consulting skills through specialized training and career development programs.
•	To gain public recognition for IMC certification.
•	To enhance the reputation of management consulting as a profession.

Membership

IMC membership represent a significant and growing proportion of the practitioners in the field. Members are associated with their local chapters that sponsor national programs at the local level, such as Confab in Reno, NV), plus programs of their own that meet the professional development and professional needs of their own members. In this way, the IMC maintains close and continuing referral contact with its members and is responsive to their needs.

IMC members take pride in their work and are committed to excellence in their practice. Through membership and certification in the IMC, management consultants broaden and develop their consulting capabilities while contributing to the advancement of their profession.

Membership in the IMC is restricted to individuals who spend the substantial majority of their working time in the public practice of management consulting. “Substantial majority” means well over half of one’s time. “Public practice” means serving a number of different clients on a fee basis. “Management consulting” is defined as rendering independent advise and assistance to clients on the basis of competence in management processes, that include analyzing, planning, organizing, controlling and administering.

Candidates for membership complete an application form that calls for basic biographical information and professional references, and entails the payment of an entrance fee and annual dues. Members join through the national IMC website.

About IMC SoCal, the IMC Southern California Chapter

Our Chapter reflects the character of our national and global organizations. Please see www.imcusa.org. Our Board of Directors meet monthly to chart the direction of our member-driven Chapter. Board meeting agendas and minutes are kept and are available to members upon request. For more details about how our Chapter operates and what it has to offer, please explore this website.