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2023’s Top 10 Under 40: Jemma Moore, Lafarge Canada

You won’t catch Jemma Moore at a nine to five job in an office. The young engineer says working in quarries and pits appeals to her sense of adventure, giving her something new to look forward to every day.

“There’s such a wide variety, no two days are the same and that really appeals to me,” she says. “The people in this industry are just some of the greatest people to work with. They just make the job.”

Moore has been in the industry for a decade, using her drive to get to where she is today.

With a master’s degree in engineering and a degree in international business, the combination of hard work and ambition has gotten Moore the notice of those around her, including her superiors. Now that she’s managing her own team, Moore says she hopes she can be as good a leader as her mentors have been to her.

“I’ve been so fortunate, and in my career, I had some of the best managers and mentors around me and I’ve just learned so much from them. They’ve given me so many opportunities to grow and to learn and I feel like it’s so important now to give to others,” she says.

For Moore, that means pushing those around her to be the best they can be.

“I have quite high expectations, I think, for myself and for the team. But like I say, I think it’s because I have such good managers and mentors, I’ve got a lot to live up to and I want to pass it on to other people, so we can continue to be the best that we can be.”

Learning to lead by example, for Moore, has meant learning to stand out and help the industry solve its challenges with gender inequality from the inside out.

“As the young female in the industry, I wanted to be one of the lads, which is just a ridiculous thing to say, but when I started, there were five of us and I was the only female. So, I kind of just molded into the guys. When opportunities came to work on women in construction groups, I didn’t want to participate in that because I didn’t want to single myself out,” she says of her first couple of years out of school.

“As I’ve gone through my career and understood the inequalities between women and men in this industry, I feel like it’s so important now, and I am part of a lot of women’s groups because I understand it more.”

When asked for advice, Moore says she tells those she mentors not to be afraid of standing out.

“My one piece of advice to someone starting in this industry is you’ve really got to make your own path. And there’s so many opportunities in this industry, there’s so many opportunities. You could just sit there and just do your job, or you could make other people aware of where you want to go and what you want to do.”