Back in 1992, the current Director of LSPR, John Dalton, had just ended his role as editor of one of the world’s leading medical journals, Current Opinion in Gastroenterology, to buy a publishing school.

For this school, John wanted to develop some “PR noise.” He enrolled on various PR courses. He was struck by the lack of business context in some of the courses, and decided that a real gap existed in the market for a training organisation that could help people get the most out of communications and branding in a realistic, practical way, hence LSPR was born.

His brand became popular and was helped in the early days by Susan Croft of Hill & Knowlton. John wanted to distance himself from the more “fluffy ideas” of PR and focus more on what worked in the realisation that good PR and reputation management not only gave a huge return on investment, it also provided the distinctive difference that drove the most successful brands forward.

LSPR moved from its original location in South Kensington, to Notting Hill and Kensington and the brand grew, training graduates, professionals, executives from SMEs to multinationals, as well as diplomats, ambassadors and Royalty, in areas such as message control and crisis communications. LSPR soon had an impressive client list and started to franchise its brand, by setting up a global network in 13 countries.

The brand witnessed major changes to the communications industry, especially the advance of digital and social media and the rise of more integrated corporate communications. In 1998, LSPR was the first training organisation in the UK to formally teach reputation management to PR and communications professionals and was quick to adapt its training to reflect the fast moving social media trends since 2006. The brand survived the ravages of the 2008 global meltdown and emerged as a leaner and more adaptive force in communications training. It developed its own unique style of training, hybrid training, which combined elements of management consultancy with more traditional aspects of training. This approach proved very popular with clients and is one of LSPR’s unique value propositions.

Today, LSPR is a growing powerful brand both in the UK and internationally, with new franchises planned for the United States, Central Europe and China. We hope that you can become part of our story and benefit from our knowledge, insight and passion for making communications and brands better.