2021 Engineering Leader Under 40: Allison Buenemann, 28

Industry Principal - Chemicals, Seeq, Seattle, WA, United States, BS Chemical Engineering, Purdue University, MBA, Louisiana State University

By CFE Media September 8, 2021
Allison Buenemann, 28, Industry Principal - Chemicals, Seeq, Seattle, WA, United States, BS Chemical Engineering, Purdue University, MBA, Louisiana State University

Allison Buenemann, 28
Industry Principal – Chemicals
Seeq
Seattle, WA, United States
BS Chemical Engineering, Purdue University
MBA, Louisiana State University

Why should this person be recognized for this award?

Allison is an integral part of the Seeq team both internally and externally. Her technical competence and deep domain knowledge of the chemical and petrochemical spaces have helped Seeq land new and grow existing business. Allison contributes to many different teams – from development efforts, generating marketing content, and providing pre- and post-sales analytics support. She plays a key role in Seeq’s culture, facilitating activities that keep team members excited and engaged. Externally, Allison has become the face of Seeq in the chemical industry – speaking at conferences and user groups with customers, authoring articles, and briefing industry analysts.

Achievements, Advancement & Career-related Industry Contributions

Buenemann began her career with ExxonMobil in 2015 as a process engineer for a specialty elastomers and adhesive resins. During her time as a process engineer, she leveraged data and analytics to implement process improvements driving operational excellence, with contributions resulting in more than $20MM annual savings. Buenemann gained project management and execution experience, overseeing projects from design through to completion during extended outages. After participating in three turnarounds and finishing her MBA, she was well positioned for her next role as the polymers projects group lead, where she managed the annual capital budget for three global business units. She became well versed in project economics and capturing business value. In early 2019, Buenemann transitioned into the tech industry, joining Seeq Corp. as an Analytics Engineer. Drawing on her experience as a process engineer, she was able to help customers in many industries extract value from their time series data using advanced analytics applications, from pre-sales demonstrations to enterprise rollouts and use case development. Buenemann was recently promoted to Industry Principal for chemicals, where she is shaping the go-to-market strategy, developing account-based expansion strategy, and guiding the product development roadmap, growing new and existing chemical industry business.

Non-work-related Activities & Hobbies

Allison recently relocated to Seattle, WA, where she has embraced the outdoor culture of the pacific northwest. She spends her weekends hiking, scrambling, snowshoeing, ski touring and resort skiing and has acquired more new gear than her small Seattle apartment can support. She and her partner spent Valentine’s weekend taking an avalanche safety course. Since then, she has applied that knowledge on many spring and summer adventures, including a glacier ski tour on the summer solstice! After long days in the mountains Allison enjoys trying all the great Thai food her neighborhood has to offer.

Interesting Details

  • Allison is passionate about organizational culture and making sure every team member feels excited, engaged, and well-socialized – which can be a challenge in a fully remote company! She schedules monthly team happy hours and plans quarterly get togethers to celebrate team members big life events like weddings and new babies.
  • Allison also works to ensure our global team gets together quarterly in both a social and professional capacity.
  • She’s also an underground poet. In one all-team meeting, Allison wrote a personalized haiku for each team member to highlight their contributions over the previous quarter.

Why did they choose this career?

Allison enjoys analyzing and responding to market trends with technology innovation that gets engineers and scientists excited and helps them do their jobs more effectively. She loves contributing to a product where she has a full understanding of the impact and use case applications. She wishes she had an application like Seeq in her toolset during her process engineering days! Allison enjoys working in a start-up environment and getting to wear many different hats. She believes one of the best ways to figure out what you enjoy doing is to step out of your comfort zone.

Original content can be found at Control Engineering.


Author Bio: Since its founding in 2010, CFE Media and Technology has provided engineers in manufacturing, commercial and industrial buildings, and manufacturing control systems with the knowledge they need to improve their operational efficiency. CFE delivers the right information at the right time around the world through a variety of platforms.