Ian is a chartered psychologist previously based at Brunel University and who now leads Macdonald Associates Consultancy. He graduated with Honours in Psychology from Brunel in 1972 after spending periods of work as a commodity-broker in New York, a trainee therapist in a therapeutic community in London and assistant to an Educational Psychologist in a child guidance clinic in Aylesbury.

He then worked for the Open University in Milton Keynes as an Educational Consultant. He rejoined Brunel as a member of the academic staff in the Brunel Institute of Organisation and Social Studies where he set up and directed the Mental Handicap Services Unit. He designed a new form of assessment in the field of Learning Difficulties - the Chart of Initiative and Independence and worked on several projects concerned with the closure of large hospitals and the development of community based, multi-disciplinary services. He was also involved with the design of specialist graduate assessment centres for the Civil Service and other UK businesses, and mid-career counselling for the American Army, Navy and Air Force. He was for many years a panel psychologist for the Civil Service Commission.

Over the past twenty years he has worked for a range of organisations in Australasia, North America, Africa, Russia and UK contributing to major organisational change and, in a number of cases, new ways of understanding and managing relationships in the workplace. In 1995 he was the expert witness in Australia's most significant industrial relations case. In addition to commercial work he has worked with not for profit organizations such as churches, schools, universities and development agencies and with indigenous communities developing cross-cultural initiatives.

He continues his interest in developing ideas from his doctoral thesis: 'the importance of the recognition of work in the development of identity' and maintains academic links at Brunel University and several international business school.

Outside of work he has for many years been involved in the local community and Church including being Chairman of the Board of Governors of St. Andrews School (Uxbridge). He was a founder member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Community Care. He is married to Gwyn, with three daughters, Bree, Rachel and Carys.