LesleyAnn Diffin is business communications manager for Reach, publisher of the Irish Mirror, Dublin Live, RSVP Magazine and Cork Beo. Her media career started five years ago when she became the company’s strategic planner, before taking up the B2B marketing role across the publisher’s bases in Belfast, Dublin and Cork. Before that, she worked at Belfast PR agency Smarts on brands such as Diageo and British Airways.
01 What was your earliest ambition?
After watching The Devil Wears Prada with Meryl Streep as a powerful magazine editor, I said to myself, that’s the sort of job I want to do
02 It’s our round. What are you having?
I don’t like fuss so make it a vodka, soda water and lots of fresh lime
03 Social media platform of choice?
04 A mentor or someone that inspired you?
The guy who believed in me and hired me at Mirror Media – Reach’s brand partnership director, Mark Whyte. He’s the smartest person I know, who lives and breathes the media industry and I look up to him so much. We still work side by side five years later
05 If you could be born into another time and place, where and when would it be?
The Downton Abbey era
06 Favourite writers?
I don’t have a favourite writer, I keep going back to but the last piece of writing that made me laugh out loud, nearly cry out loud and most definitely made me think out loud was by Marianne Power. She has Irish roots too
07 A film you’d watch again tonight?
A Star is Born… it would be my seventh time watching it
08 Is there an unsung hero you’d like to thank?
My sister – the only person who truly gets me. I could walk into a room and before she even sets eyes on me, she can sense my mood. I couldn’t do life without her
09 Something that no longer happens that you miss?
School and seeing your mates everyday
10 Desert island pet: Dog or cat?
Neither if I’m totally honest… scared of both! But I’d have a dog over a cat any day
11 Favourite ad?
Apologies for mentioning the ‘C word’ so soon after it, but it has to be the Guinness Christmas ad. Christmas, for me, starts when I see that ad for the first time, it just automatically flips the ‘on’ switch to ‘off’ – ready for family time
12 Are you an early adopter? What’s new?
Yes and no. I spectate from the sidelines for a bit, pass remarks and suss what the main people around me in and out of work think first before deciding what to do
13 A brand to which you feel some loyalty?
I would have to say Reach’s news brands
14 Someone you might be starstruck to meet?
Any famous person really
15 Something that recently brought a tear to your eye?
When my family surprised me with a trip to New York for my big birthday this year. Your thirties are meant to be the greatest, right?
16 Something that recently got your goat?
My trainer at the gym. Obsessed with her really, though
17 What would be your fantasy act of heroism?
There would be no more suffering, in every sense of the word
18 You’ve won the Euromillions and disappeared. Where might we find you?
The US, via London, where I’d go on a massive shopping spree. Once I’m set up on the east coast, I’d head to an island in South America for a week – or maybe a month
19 Someone or something that strikes you as beautiful?
Kindness
20 ‘Here lies LesleyAnn Diffin’. Complete your epitaph…
She dreamed
