Account Manager 

Managing a number of regional and global customer accounts, I am responsible for account profitability and maintaining a strong/healthy customer relationship. Advancing relationships is an enabler for profitability, and yields growth opportunities and many long term benefits.

The office days involve staying on top of customer requests/projects and attending internal meetings. The most gratifying days are the ones during which I get a chance to solve a customer’s problem or formulate a business strategy with my colleagues. The travel days are far more exciting and demanding as most of these start when my alarm clock goes off around 4 a.m.! It’s nice to travel to different places, interact with new people, and enjoy a nice dinner. However, it is important to mention that all of this comes with having to manage meetings, deliver presentations, react and deal with situations/ requests, do lots of thinking on your feet, and handle all of the follow-ups.   

Mostly, I enjoy solving problems and finding answers – all of the boring stuff that we engineers love to do! 

I have been fortunate to work for the three core organisations within Infineum:  Supply, Technology, and Sales and Marketing. After my process engineering days at the Bayway Chemical Plant where I started my career about 10 years ago, I moved to the Technology organisation to work in the Crankcase Development and Deployment groups. While there I worked on the development of our latest heavy duty diesel and passenger car motor oil technologies. My first introduction to the customer interface, these were great jobs. I would probably still be there today if my current supervisor didn’t knock on my door one afternoon.

From day one I have had a number of work responsibilities. The only thing that has changed or grown is the relative importance of the activities that I’m responsible for and the size of the customer accounts that I manage. 

We have some very talented folks at Infineum, and I find it motivating to work for and with these types of individuals. The company provides a good variety of career paths and good benefits. It is effective and well guided, and capable of achieving what it sets out to do.