Aileen Maceachen

Job title
Senior Consultant, Impact UK

Last book you read?
Biographies of Sting "Broken Music" and Billy Connolly "Billy" fascinating insights into 2 people I admire

Your heroes include...?
Joni Mitchell: great poet, great voice, free thinker

Your best day at Impact (so far...)?
A journey day on Lake Windermere in January, followed by a sing song around a piano in a local pub. Learning happened honestly... that is the joy of our work

Who makes you laugh?
All my mates happily, what’s friendship for? Impact staff also, there is usually a lot of laughter going on in our offices

Last journey you took?
Two weeks in Montreal, and the Laurentian mountains, spending time with my boyfriend and some old friends, exploring lakes by canoe. Fantastic

What’s on your desk?
Weird stuff: we hotdesk. My laptop is my desk, it takes a bit of getting used to

Proudest moment at work?
I am going to twist this question like all skilled interviewees should... what I feel proud of at work is those moments where groups really open up and ‘get’ what our programmes are about. There is a sort of ‘in the flow’ feeling in those moments, as our work is part art, part science and part alchemy, and sometimes you can’t really say what created this but you know something special has happened

How do you deal with stress?
Two ways: Constructively have a chat with someone to get perspectives, or go running. Unconstructively: become grumpy, offer a horrendous amount of detail to colleagues (control freak)  or cry! If only being a trainer meant that you never did all the un-useful behaviours you have psychological explanations for, funnily enough it does not work that way

Favourite place?
A lot to choose from as I love travel, but at gunpoint would have to choose the West Coast of Scotland, majestic ancient scenery, weather that can make you skip around a white beach or run for cover in the form of a fireside pint in a pub (shame...)

3 people you’d have dinner with (dead or alive)?
I have to choose 5: Alistair, Heather, Isobel, Helen and Uli: my nephew and nieces, its hard to top their company