Alumni profile: Sharlene Bugden

Bachelor of Chemical Engineering
Employer: Pall Corporation
Position: SE Asia Regional Sales Engineer - Power Generation

After graduating from Monash I went directly into an internal sales position for Pegler Beacon Flow Control where I provided technical support for sales engineers servicing companies in the Pharmaceutical and Food & Beverage industries. I was with Pegler Beacon for almost two years, gaining valuable insight into the engineering sales process and polishing my customer service skills.

From this internal sales role I moved to Pall Corporation in Melbourne to my first Account Management position. I took a job as Account Manager for the Fuels & Chemicals markets in Queensland and the Northern Territory. This position involved plenty of travel to some amazing places in Australia, as well as internationally for the purpose of training and liasing with my colleagues. I was involved with interesting projects on refineries and chemical plants alike and had the opportunity to work with some great mentors who helped in shaping my sales strategies.

A little over two years into this position with Pall I decided to alter my career direction and took up an opportunity with the energy management firm Energetics in Melbourne. Once again a large portion of my position included business development but I enjoyed the diversity of working with municipal water companies and multinational corporations for the purpose of energy efficiency audits, power purchasing agreements and greenhouse reporting.

My personal circumstances changed in 2003 and I moved internationally first to Japan and then to Singapore. When finally settled in my new country I was fortunate to be able to begin working once again for Pall Corporation. This time around I am enjoying the opportunity to work in the ever expanding power generation industry in the SE Asian region. I am responsible for the market in Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, working with our distributors and developing our market approach to these rapidly evolving economies. I travel extensively in the area and have had the opportunity to work with talented engineers of just about every nationality.

I have greatly enjoyed the path my career has taken since graduating in 1999, I've travelled to some amazing places and had the great pleasure of working with some fantastic people. Looking into the future I am looking into furthering my management role and assisting other engineers in gaining a fulfilling technical sales career.