I am having some trouble balancing stakeholder relationships and delivering a high quality project on time and would like your advice.

The department that I am delivering a solution for has assigned a person, of whose role and value add I’m unsure of, to shadow me.  She has requested she be optionally invited to every meeting and cc’d in every email I send in regards to the project.  Where I fail to do this, she reminds me and cc’s in a number of other stakeholders.  She also interjects in my requirements gathering workshops, often speaking over the top of me, and jumping to solution design. 

I have spoken with her in regards to this but I don’t hold much hope her behaviour will change as a result.

The other stakeholders are very protective of their “customers” and do not wish for me to speak to them without their attendance.  For example, I had a meeting booked with some high level directors 2 weeks in advance and was told by the stakeholder this morning that I should cancel it because two of her staff members who she wanted to attend to listen in were sick.  I refused, as I the purpose of the meeting is to gather their end user requirements, mostly regarding as-is, and if we pushed it back it would have to be for another week.  She is not impressed.

I am just wondering if anyone else on here has dealt with a similar situation and what their advice was to improve the situation.  I am looking at working with the same group of stakeholders for the rest of the year at least and I feel I need to be able to assert my authority as a professional business analyst with the aim of following BA best practices and delivering in scope and on time, without fully compromising these relationships.

Thanks in advance!

Thanks for your advice Nimil.  I like option two the best but that's because I'm evil :P