CME Corp.’s Shannon Trahan has crafted a successful professional legacy from customer service to sales leadership roles.
By Pete Mercer
Leadership journeys rarely move in a straight line from A to B. There are many stops along the way, especially when you start out in an entry level position. Every day brings a new lesson, and some of those lessons may be harder to learn than others. But there’s also a new opportunity each day – you just have to be willing to look for it.
Shannon Trahan is no stranger to looking for opportunities. As the director of sales – south region for CME, she knows exactly what a multi-stop leadership journey looks like because that’s what her career looks like. Repertoire Magazine recently spoke to Trahan about her path from customer service to director of sales, the impact of PWH on her career, and what it takes to lead a team of high-performing professionals.
Early career ventures
Trahan has been in the healthcare industry for 27 years – wanting to get her foot in the door of the healthcare industry, she started working in customer service for Optimal, a healthcare supply chain services company. Over the first 16 years of her career, she worked in customer service, operations, as a database manager, and in national accounts.
While doing some consulting work for Professional Women in Healthcare (PWH), she attended a networking event where she had a conversation with Cindy Juhas about taking the next step in her career. Cindy extended an offer for Trahan to work remotely as an inside sales/marketing representative. “I highly respect Cindy and value the leadership skills and mentorship that she’s provided,” Trahan said. “Of course, knowing how well-respected Cindy is in the industry, I was thrilled to have an opportunity to work for her and knew it was going to be a pivotal moment in my career.”
Shortly after Trahan started working for Juhas at Hospital Associates, Juhas announced that she was merging her company with CME Corp. Trahan was already familiar with both companies, so this was a welcome and exciting challenge.
“Change is scary for many people; however, I felt the merger was going to be great for both companies and the employees. It turned out to be more than my wildest dreams,” Trahan said.
From inside sales to account manager
After the Hospital Associates and CME merger, Trahan went through another transition. She had been working with Juhas as an inside sales specialist for Hospital Associates, but then moved to remotely covering the northern California territory from Houston. She found that her customer service experience was very helpful in the new role.
However, Trahan knew that she wasn’t quite settled. She was missing out on the outside sales and end user experience – she felt that the opportunity to start learning how to navigate hospitals and get out in front of the customers was critical for her growth. KC Meleski, then VP of sales at CME, approached her with an opportunity to relocate to cover the northern California territory full-time.
“When I got to California, I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t even know my way around the area that well. So, step one – I needed to meet all of my manufacturer reps.”
That’s exactly what she did for the first few months of that two-year period. She worked with them to better understand how she could meet their needs, while getting more familiar with this new-to-her side of the business. She went into hospitals on co-calls and ride-alongs to learn as much as she could about their product portfolios and the customer’s needs. She described these days as a “download of as much information as I could get.”
From account manager to director of sales
Towards the end of her two-year stint in California, her mom was diagnosed with lung cancer. Trahan needed to be back home in Texas to take care of her, so CME offered an opportunity to take over the Texas territory. From there, she covered Texas, Louisiana, and New Mexico, and had “national account responsibility for one of the large surgery center groups.”
She did that for a couple of years before transitioning into a management role. CME’s CEO, Normand Chevrette, asked Trahan about her future goals at the time. She said, “I could see myself building out the territory in Texas, maybe even having multiple reps because Texas is so big.” Little did she know that her role would come to encompass the entire south region.
For Trahan, that transition into leadership would not have been possible without her time in the field. That experience gave her the opportunity to hone her mentoring and coaching skills, an invaluable set of skills that would come to serve her well in her leadership position.
“I think my purpose is that I want to leave the healthcare industry better than I found it. A huge part of making healthcare better is finding the next generation of leaders. I’m constantly trying to identify individuals that aspire to be future leaders and look for ways to help foster their development.”
The role of PWH
For Trahan, PWH has played an invaluable role in her career. Through this community, she was introduced to Cindy Juhas, which led to her job at CME. She maintains that without PWH, she would not be where she is today.
“PWH gave me a confidence boost in those earlier years in my career where I wasn’t as confident in my abilities. It helped me find my voice and realize that there might be more outside of my current position,” she said.
Part of what makes a member organization like PWH such a powerful resource is the number of opportunities that arise from participating. Networking and exposure to a community of leaders is a powerful stimulant for inspiration and productivity.
Trahan said, “Being around so many women leaders that were so passionate about the industry and eager to help women to develop their careers inspired me to get more excited about the industry. Early on, I volunteered on the marketing committee, which helped me to develop some skill sets that I was lacking.”
One of the unique aspects of a membership with PWH is that it’s giving women in the healthcare industry an opportunity to learn from each other and build each other up. Trahan noted that medical sales gets a lot of young women coming in as reps, but once they start families, they can find it difficult to navigate returning to the industry and maintaining a work-life balance.
“One of the things that PWH really helped me with early on in my career was establishing a work-life balance, which is something that I try to really encourage for my team. Learning that you can have a balance is important for one’s mental and physical well-being.”
Finding the right talent
Regarding her leadership style, Trahan chooses a mentor/coach approach that lets her team operate within a wide set of margins. “I am a big proponent of an entrepreneurial spirit,” she said. “We want self-starters that want to work hard. They are the owners of their territory, so we give them the guard rails and the rules to work within and then set them free to do it.”
At the end of the day, that management style may not work for everyone. With this approach, it’s important to find the right type of person that can be successful within those parameters. According to Trahan, CME has a very lengthy interview process. The company is looking for something a little bit different than a traditional manufacturer rep or distribution rep, because they handle a lot of the behind the scenes quoting and specification of products.
“We need people that are analytical and organized, which is not always a combination that’s easy to find. We’re also looking for how they’ll fit in with the organization personality-wise. We work hard, but we like to have fun as well,” Trahan said.
Leaving the industry better than you found it
The idea of “leaving the industry better than you found it” is one that Trahan is actively working toward. One of the pivotal moments of her career is when she decided that she needed to find her purpose and shape her career around that approach. “I feel like just making a difference in the interactions we’re having, whether it’s with my team or our customers. Part of my role is to help develop the next group of leaders that are coming behind me.”
After both her mom and her husband battled cancer, it gave her a new perspective on the work that CME does. She found herself in hospital rooms where she was interacting with nurses, getting a different perspective on the care continuum.
“It gave me a new appreciation for what we do and how important the equipment that we provide is. After my husband’s Neobladder surgery in February 2023, I followed up in an email with my team, urging them to keep the patient in mind. There’s a patient or a caregiver at the end of every piece of equipment that we’re selling. We want to improve the lives of people that we’re serving.”
It came down to something as simple as the chair that her mom was sitting in while receiving infusion therapy. This is a chair that her company sells, and her mom is sitting in it for her cancer treatments. It was a sobering reminder of the role that she plays in the care continuum, and another reason to leave the industry in a better place than when she started in 1997.
Fortunately for the healthcare industry, Trahan still has some more to give. “I still enjoy my work! I like what I do. I’ve got a good 10 to 12 years left before retirement and I’m looking forward to seeing what my team can accomplish and what progress we can make as an industry.”