James Parsons founded ICC in 1997 – born in England, teacher by trade, lingophile and commited Leipziger. Like many companies, ICC started small; one room & four students. More and more ‘private’ students found out about ICC and soon the first corporate client, Deutsche Bahn, started sending their employees to the school, and have continued until today.

In 1998, ICC expanded its portfolio of services: trainers joined ICC, new target groups were addressed. In September of that year, EUROWORK was launched. Through language courses and a recruitment programme, job seekers were supported and directly helped back into work in the UK and Ireland.
EUROWORK has helped over 300 people find work. On average the EUROWORKERS stayed abroad for 12 months. In their return, they had much better job opportunities in the Leipzig region.

In March 1999, the English Business Club (EBC) was founded with the goal of bringing the business community and anglophiles together for evening events. Around 40 guests came to the first EBC, a year later the average was 80. Now EBC is a well established bimonthly regular event.