Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Sirmaur, an institute of National importance setup by the Government of India started its operations with a small batch of 20 students on September 4, 2015 from its transit campus located at Paonta Sahib, District Sirmaur, Himachal Pradesh. The institute started its academic activities for the 2 years full-time residential MBA programme under the mentorship of IIM Lucknow. On October 6, 2016, a total land of 210 acres (1010.5 Bighas) was allotted and transferred to the institute for the construction of its permanent campus at Dhaula Kuan, District Sirmaur, Himachal Pradesh. The institute welcomed its first director or the founder director Prof. (Dr.) Neelu Rohmetra on March 8, 2017. Following the joining of the founder director, the academic activities and the progress on the construction of the permanent campus continued in full swing. The first batch of MBA students graduated on April 8, 2017, in the auspicious presence of the founder director, the Chairman of Board of Governors (BoG) IIM Sirmaur- Shri. Ajay S. Shriram and the Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh. The year 2018 has been a landmark in the academic arena of the institute with a tie-up with the prestigious SDA Bocconi School of Management (Milan, Italy) for the International Immersion programme of MBA students. For two consecutive years 2018-19, the MBA students post their summer internship programme attended two full credit courses at Milan over a period of 3 weeks with the credits being transferred by SDA to IIM Sirmaur.
 
Due to the havoc caused by COVID-19 worldwide, the International Immersion programme with SDA was discontinued in-between with the institute currently exploring to resume the ties once again and associating with few more academic partners worldwide. Like most other academic institutions worldwide, the year 2020 witnessed the institute successfully transition from face-to-face classroom teaching to online pedagogy and evaluation. The year 2020 also witnessed the institute attain new heights in academics as they started a new sectoral post-graduate programme - the MBA (Tourism & Hospitality Management) and the doctoral PhD programme. It is worth mentioning that IIM Sirmaur is the first institute in the prestigious IIM family to start a sectoral MBA in Tourism & hospitality Management. Apart from academic excellence and the placements of students, IIM Sirmaur also strives to work with the local community to address the issues of livelihood, entrepreneurship, environment, waste management, sustainability, etc. With these objectives in mind and in the academic year 2019-20, the institute adopted 5 nearby villages under the Unnat Bharat Abhiyan (UBA) programme and also established the Centre for Sustainability & Environmental Management (CSEM) to drive the same. The foundation stone for the construction of the permanent campus at Dhaula Kuan, District Sirmaur, Himachal Pradesh was laid on August 4, 2020. Even though the construction of the permanent campus faced hurdles due to COVID-19, currently the construction is on at full swing and it is likely that the institute will start functioning from its permanent campus by the academic year 2024-25. From a small batch of 20 students in 2015, the institute has grown exponentially across the years to over 600 students in the academic year 2023-24.

The year 2022 also witnessed a change in the leadership with the institute bidding adieu to its founder director and welcoming Professor Prafulla Y. Agnihotri as the new director. Under the able leadership of Professor Agnihotri, the institute launched two new Executive programmes in the academic year 2023-24- Executive MBA and Executive MBA in Digital Transformation & Analytics. The faculty at IIM Sirmaur includes the best brains from across the world with PhDs from premier institutions from India and abroad. Apart from rigorous classroom teaching, the faculty of the institute are involved in funded projects, Management Development Programmes (MDPs), Faculty Development Programmes (FDPs), consultancies, cutting-edge research etc. The faculty of the institute publishes regularly in top-category journals listed in ABDC, ABS etc.