Life at IGS Energy: Meet Amanda Seguin
In 2010, while the U.S. was reeling from a recession, Amanda Seguin was fresh out of college, and work opportunities were stale. Little did she know the internship she landed with IGS Energy would spark a 14-year career.
"I graduated in the middle of the last recession, and jobs were difficult to come by, so I was just thrilled to find an opportunity and wasn't exactly sure what I was getting myself into," said Amanda, senior manager of commercial and industrial (C&I) sales. "I was pleasantly surprised — once I had a better sense of what I was doing and learned more about the company — that this is a place with really great opportunities and potential growth paths for myself."
Amanda has taken full advantage of the opportunities IGS Energy has provided and has felt security thanks to the company’s position as an energy market leader.
"Graduating in the recession, I was looking for industries I felt like would be there for a long time, and felt energy was a good spot to be," Amanda said. "I joined IGS through a combination of an opportunity and knowing that I wanted to be in this specific industry. But what's kept me here is the company itself, the trust in leadership, and the growth opportunities."
Apart from being a sales guru for C&I, Amanda enjoys staying active outside the office alongside her husband, fellow IGS-er Tom Seguin, who she met shortly after joining the C&I team. She’s been riding in Pelotonia for 6 years, biking to help fund cancer research alongside several other IGS-ers. "And any opportunity to get back on the ice, I love," said Amanda, who was once a competitive figure skater. "I can’t skate the way I used to, but I still try to get involved in that world."
With a hop, a skip, and a lutz, Amanda has continued an upward journey through her career at IGS Energy over the years, and, here, she shares her experiences.
Beginning her career with IGS
I joined IGS in June 2010 as an intern, and as I’d already graduated from college, I moved into a full-time position that fall when my internship ended. I’ve had kind of a winding path through the C&I world since then.
I think anytime you’re job hunting in the middle of a recession, finding yourself in a company where you trust that it's going to be around for a while, and that you have a good opportunity for a stable growth path, makes you want to stay as long as possible.
Helping IGS enter the Illinois market
In 2011, we were selling natural gas only, mainly in Ohio and Michigan, and we wanted to open up the Illinois market. I raised my hand to move to Chicago and help open up that space. And it was a great opportunity. I was cold knocking day in and day out. I would drive and park at a business park and just walk up and down — just anything I could do to get the IGS name and brand out there.
I certainly can’t take responsibility for all of this, but now the office that started with just myself and two other reps has about 15 sales reps, and it’s one of our highest growth markets. It's really exciting to see the growth that territory has had, and there's really great opportunity in Illinois for us as a department and as a company.
I'm from Columbus originally, so I moved back home and, a few years after that, I moved into a brand-new dual role, in which half my time was focused on my customers and working with a team of sales reps, and the other half was spent with what we called our continuous education programming.
As our C&I department has grown — there were 12 sales reps when I started, now pushing 90 — we’ve focused on how we can make sure all reps have the best education about the industry and the products we offer. My role evolved over time to provide more structure and organization to the education we're offering our reps. I started this work in 2020, and today I’m focused here nearly full-time, formalizing what we've been working on for the past 4 years.
The team's future expansion
I'm forming a new division with my coworkers Brittney Beha and Jake Molter to really formalize our continuous education programming for the C&I sales reps. I’m really excited to launch this new team within C&I and start providing helpful content, and more definition, structure, and intention around the training we're bringing reps — so that they can bring this information to their customers. Something we've always believed is that the best customer is an educated customer. To that end, we have to have the most highly educated sales reps in the industry.
From a strategic initiative perspective, we’re ramping up to enter New Jersey, which will be a brand-new state for C&I sales. And we've had a lot of really great growth within C&I: We've had record years recently. To be able to provide additional opportunities for reps to sell and grow our footprint in the New Jersey market is really exciting.
A “typical” day at IGS
There isn't a typical day — a lot depends on what's going on in our business.
Along with working on providing different education structure to our sales reps and developing that content, I also work closely on any strategic initiatives within C&I: working closely with our business partners to help identify what's needed from a certain project, working closely with IT to determine what the requirements of an enhancement or new tech deliverable would be, and then working really closely with the sales reps on identifying what their needs are.
Her top IGS experiences
In 2018, I had the opportunity to go to Tijuana through our GRID Alternatives partnership, which was just phenomenal. We had a great group of IGS folks, and we stayed at an orphanage in Tijuana and installed solar on their roof. What made it really impactful is that we actually stayed at the orphanage. We had all of our meals with the kiddos, and we got to go pick them up from school, and play soccer, and just really immerse ourselves in their world — while also building solar and helping to provide clean and free energy for them. It was just amazing. The group that I went with became very close through the experience.
In 2020, we launched our new CRM, which was a huge undertaking. The IGS IT team built a brand-new CRM for us in-house, and I worked closely with them to make sure it met our needs and then worked through the change management of delivering it out to the sales reps. It's been a game-changer for us, and our sales reps are able to work much more efficiently. That's been exciting, seeing the project's success.
Several years ago, before the formal launch of IGS Communities, I helped launch what's now known as the IGS Women's Network with a group of women from all different areas of IGS. And that's now a community close to my heart. I think it's done extremely well and served a lot of needs, as far as providing a place of connection and support, so that's something I'm super proud of.
Finding purposeful work
When I first started and was more in my sales-focused role, I got so much purpose from working with my customers and seeing how the solutions that we brought to their table allowed them to run their businesses better, make better decisions.
There would be times when we were working with a customer whose energy was a really significant portion of their operating budget, and our ability to provide stable, reliable pricing without surprises — being a trusted partner — really allowed them to operate their business better. To have those relationships with customers and know that I'm really helping them was what made me excited to get up every day.
As my role has shifted, it's changed from serving my customers to serving the overall team — and finding ways to help those just starting in their careers to get up-to-speed faster, and to help their customers so that they can continue to grow their books, and their income, and become a more trusted resource for our customers and a better representation of IGS. So, it's certainly shifted from like a “me” focus to a “you” focus.
The importance of flexibility and work-life balance
I think IGS has always been great from a work-life balance perspective, but the evolution into being more open to different working environments has been that next step of supporting people wherever they're at. So right now, I'm hybrid: I do a couple days a week at home and then usually three or four days in the office.
And that really works for me. I love being in the office. I love feeling the energy of the team, being able to chat with people one–on-one and have those more casual conversations while getting coffee, or whatever that may be, in the cafe.
But then I also really value my days at home, being able to walk my dog or pick up our kids from daycare. Those are the things that really add so much value to my day. Having the balance of both is wonderful.
Life outside IGS
I have two small children — I've got a 3-1/2-year-old and a 15-month-old — so, unfortunately, I don't have as many hobbies and interests as I used to outside of them. But I love just being outdoors as much as possible, whether it's playing in the backyard with the kids and the dog or going for walks, riding my bike.
I really, really enjoy reading. That's something I probably spend most of my leisure time doing, and I have a particular fondness for libraries. I live in Grandview, Ohio, and we have a fabulous local community library, so I spend a decent amount of time there with my kids.
What makes IGS a great workplace
When I think of this, a couple things immediately jump out to me, and the first one is just the people we work with. The fact that I not only enjoy my coworkers, but I've been able to create great relationships and deep friendships to the extent that we spend time outside of the office or even vacationing together.
Through the building of those great relationships, you just develop this great sense of trust and support among coworkers which allows people, I think, to really show up, do the job, and know that everyone's got your back. I like to say we take our work seriously, but we don't take ourselves seriously: being able to laugh at each other and just enjoy being in each other's company.
Also, I think culture can be set from the environment that our leadership has created, knowing that we have the support of the executive team to go ahead and grow our business, trusting in the leadership's guidance and path for IGS that we’re going to be here for a long time, and you can really build a career here.
Excitement for the future of IGS
I feel like IGS has always positioned themselves to be at the forefront of our industry. I would even go as far as to say we’re leaders within the energy industry, so I don’t know exactly what the future holds, whether it’s a new product or a new market we're entering.
But the way we go to the market, the way we serve our customers, the way we support our employees and develop new solutions, I know it's going to be exciting, and we've got a great team of committed people that are going to make it happen. I have full trust in the leadership; wherever they want to take us, we'll be doing really good things.