About
SMC birthed The Creative Academy (TCA), a virtual creative school designed to empower people to think more creatively and produce better results. We believe that everyone is born creative and can work through intentional steps to reach their full creative potential, no matter the field they find themselves in.
TCA offers training programmes for business executives, marketing teams, creative agencies, content creators, influencers, community managers and anyone who could do with a serious boost in their thinking. Our programmes are built on one core conviction: creativity is no longer a nice-to-have. It is the most critical soft skill of our time.
In February 2024, Forbes reported that 70% of employers identified creative thinking as the most in-demand skill of the year. The World Economic Forum listed it among the top 10 skills of 2025. Telling people to be more creative is not enough. They need to be equipped to actually do it. That is exactly what TCA does.
Another reason TCA exists is to fill a gap we identified in the market. Marketing and advertising professionals who create communications for their clients have very few training programmes built specifically for them. Most training stops at general creativity or soft skills. TCA goes further, offering targeted programmes that speak directly to the work these professionals do every day. That is a gap we took on as our brief, and we have built our Creative Services programmes specifically to address it.
TCA Programmes
TCA offers five categories of training, each designed to address a specific need. Whether you are an executive looking to think differently, a team preparing for a strategy session, or a creative professional ready to level up, there is a programme built for you.
Creativity
Programmes designed to unlock the creative thinking abilities already within you and learn how to turn it into better business results.
Flagship Programme: Everyone Is Creative
CREATIVE Communication
Programmes designed to build the skills to communicate more creatively, clearly and effectively across every business touchpoint.
Current Programmes: Hot Copy, Caption This
CREATIVE Services
For creatives who need to sharpen the skills required to produce stronger, more effective work for clients and audiences.
Current Programmes: The Next Level Creative, The Next Level Account Exec
Team Building
Bring teams together, unlock creative thinking and get them into the right headspace to do better work together.
Programmes: The Most Creative Team Building Session
Custom-Built Programmes
Tell us what your team needs. We’ll assess it, design it and build a programme around it.
How We Work
Flexible delivery, practical learning, and measurable impact.
TCA is a virtual academy, meaning we can train executives near and far with no geographical restrictions, working with facilitators around the world. We are also able to come to your premises where the necessary space and equipment allow.
Sessions run for a maximum of four hours a day, determined by the scope of the programme and spread to suit the schedules of your team. Delivery methods include live lectures, discussions, pre and post-session exercises and post-training assessment activities.
The Cost of Not Training
Consider the cost of not building the creative capacity of your team, especially in an age where soft skills are where the competitive advantage lives. Strain in the economy, the cost of doing business, aggressive competition and technological advancement have all made it necessary to invest intentionally in the people who make up your organisation.
Executives already equipped with principles and frameworks need to harness the power of creativity to apply creative thinking to their work, excel and outdo competition. The problems businesses face today need creative thinkers to solve them. And creative thinkers are those who will future-proof any business.
The cost of not training in creativity is a cost too high for any organisation to bear today. If none of our listed programmes fit your specific needs, we are happy to build one that does. Reach out for a needs assessment and we will make it happen.
What Clients and Participants Say
Real feedback from teams who have used TCA to build creative capability.
A workshop that facilitates a mind-set shift about creativity and empowers participants!
Absolutely worth it
Very insightful and practical for the creative professional and eye opening for the non-creative professional
Crucial for anyone involved in creative work
The best thing you can educate yourself on as a creative, is the knowledge that you dont know everything there is to know about creativity, and this session teaches you that. Elaborately
Fantastic workshop, I’d ask for more interactive elements whether through group activities, videos, photos incorporated into it
It was more fun than i expected…You should consider a podcast hehe
The entire session was so value packed. I enjoyed the delivery. I love how there were practical tips included. I wish we were given a 10 mins break before the transition to Part 2. It would have helped me to take a mental break.
Very glad my team and I went through this! I’m already excited to think of more ways to intentionally incorporate this into our workflow moving forward.
I feel more grateful to God for having a much more diversified portfolio in creativity. Even though I just started out, I am now more motivated to expand on this and add so much more to it. I’m inquisitive by nature, and now a whole branch of knowledge has been opened up for me to explore. For that, I say thank you, Sharon. I would love to be a part of your session again. I look forward to immersing myself in your work to help provide you with the best form of creativity we have as a team
Hi Sharon,
This has been such a great session so far! Thank you for the deliberateness you have put into your presentation.
Thank you, ma. I enjoyed the session.
Thank you so much, Sharon. It was an awesome three days you spent with us.
“It takes a great man to be a good listener.” – Calvin Coolidge
Thank you Sharon for such a good 3 days of impacting knowledge….
Sharon Mills, M.A congratulations and continue with the good work, you are good at what you do.
You did great there, you really know your craft and you have paid your price, cheer’s to beautiful years ahead
Wonderful presentation, Sharon!
Sharon, the BTL Africa team is one of the most creative teams on the continent. I am not surprised they keep learning. I wholly endorse your thoughts on what managers can do to build their teams. The 3rd point is the critical piece. A leader’s active support for learning and development interventions increases the ROI significantly. Well done.
One of the best we have engaged for this. Thank you for keeping it practical, interactive and insightful, Sharon Mills, M.A.
The experience and the depth of knowledge shared are worth applauding. We achieved most of the objectives and we will be observing and monitoring how if all translate into the performance expected.
We will definitely do this again measuring the return on this investment on our staff at BTL Africa. The feedback from the team and the evaluation showed that their expectations were met and they had fun learning for new skills. I am glad you made it count, Sharon
If you are an HR or a manager reading this, I highly recommend to you Sharon and the SMC Creative Academy.