My working life..

Aug 15 2008

Hugh Kilpatrick, director of Run Meetings

Since setting up business conference centre Run Meetings Hugh Kilpatrick is slowly getting used to staying put.

Having spent the majority of his working life as a management consultant he was not used to being in the same place all the time.

However, along with business partner Christopher Reynolds, he is almost always on hand at the facilities just off Junction Two of the M9.

He said: "The strangest thing was re-acquainting myself with working in the same place nearly every day. I have not done that since my days as a manufacturing engineer." Although the firm was only set up earlier this year Kilpatrick is excited by the response to its bespoke services.

Among the unusual offerings is the chance to write on the walls and have it photographed at the end of the day.

He said: "The response we've had from our early customers has been more than encouraging. We set up Run because we believed business meetings should be as creative as people want them to be.

"We were being stifled by hotel facilities that did not allow us to use the walls to stick flip chart paper on to, let alone write on them."

An average day will see him in the office at around 8am. There's an office check-in every morning where Kilpatrick can make sure any issues are resolved.

The rest of the day might be spent on direct marketing campaigns, working up proposals for larger conferences or on setting up systems which he believes will be the backbone for future expansion.

Back home he finds the easiest way to relax is by playing with the local pipe band. "It's a very effective way of wiping clean your mind at the end of the day - and it also means that I'm pretty immune to the children's noise when I get home."