Singapore Manufacturing Plant Manager

Seok Chen Yap
Joined Infineum in 1999

Having gained a BA and MSc in chemical engineering, I joined Infineum in 1999, the year the company was formed, as a Senior Process Engineer at our manufacturing plant in Singapore.

I held this position for two years before taking on a Plant Technical Leader role, where I had responsibility for supervising process engineers in the technical department.

This was a role I held until 2006, when I took on the Technical Manager role at which point my team expanded from beyond process engineers to include a project and process control team.  During my time at the plant, I was involved in several capacity enhancement projects, which firmed up my foundation in manufacturing process understanding.

Three years later in 2009, I left supply manufacturing and moved into the sales function of the business as a Sales and Business Analyst for Asia Pacific, supporting the specialties segment.  This was a big step for me as I had the opportunity to move into the commercial part of our business.

In 2010, while still holding this role, I took on additional responsibility by becoming Specialities Regional Market Manager.  A couple of years later I was promoted to Crankcase Regional Market Manager and gave up the analyst role.  The Regional Market Manager role thrust me into the understanding of the market and customers that we are selling our products to, the value proposition of our products to our customers and the industry and OEM specifications that drive the market direction.  It was a challenging time for me as I needed to acquire significant new knowledge within a short period of time.  It turned out to be personally enriching and I travelled widely within Asia Pacific and interacted with customers from very different cultural backgrounds.

In 2014, I added Southern Asia Sales Manager to my role of Regional Market Manager.  In this role, I was responsible for the sales operations and was intimately involved in the tactical strategy development at each of the customers with my account managers and I also interacted closely with the supply chain organisation.  I held this position for two years until moving into my new and first global role as Global Investment and Asset Manager.  In this role, I am responsible for managing capital investment appropriations, ensuring that we are able to collate capital requirements in line with our plans. I also work closely with the marketing teams and other functions to manage long term demand for resources and support.