Plumbing Africa November 2018 | Page 68

66 PERSONALITY PROFILE Sales champion’s meteoric rise Charlene Joubert’s rise to one of the top positions at Dutton Plastics Engineering has been absolutely meteoric. At just 33 years old, Joubert has recently been promoted again and is now national sales and marketing director for the company. Charlene Joubert, national sales and marketing director at Dutton Plastics Engineering. By Warren Robertson Self-effacing and humble Joubert smiles as she describes the fact that she received a technical matric, and fully intended becoming a draughtsman before she fell into the sales department at Dutton as a junior sales rep in 2008. By 2011, she was regional sales manager before she started becoming more heavily involved in the marketing side of the business and was soon put in charge of marketing, too. “I don’t really miss the technical side at all. Being in sales has been something of a calling,” Joubert says. She admits, though, that from time to time her husband will come home from work to find her, paintbrush in hand, embarking on a new project around the house, and while she says her drilling has been known to strike electrical cables and pipes, her home DIY projects have been enough to keep the yearning to work with her hands at bay. Joubert’s rise through the ranks at Dutton is seemingly not uncommon at the company, where Joubert guesses the average length of service is about 17 years. “Dutton is really good at promoting internally. All three of the branch managers in the sales team started out as reps themselves,” she explains, before going on to exalt the people who work in her team. “My sales team is amazing. Such a good group of people. I have been really lucky with whom I get to work with … just a brilliant group of people,” Joubert enthuses. November 2018 Volume 24 I Number 9 This appreciation for those who work under her is an ongoing theme of speaking with Joubert, who claims she www.plumbingafrica.co.za