To begin with, the college started as a study center of the Newport University, Newport Beach, California, USA, and was named as Newport College Islamabad. It rendered useful services to the private sector establishments for about 8 years by offering futuristic skill oriented professional degree, diploma, and certificate programs in the areas of relevance such as Art & Design; Information Technology; and Business Administration. With the transformation of UGC to HEC, and a change in the government higher education policy, the college management in line with the new environment, also renamed the college as Islamabad College of Management and Design (ICMD) and sorted affiliation with Hazara University, which is a high ranking public sector university, duly chartered in 2001 by the then Government of NWFP renamed Khyber Pakhtoon Khwa (KPK).