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2023’s Top 10 Under 40: Stacia Sharma, Lafarge Canada

At just 34, Stacia Sharma has climbed up to impressive heights, working in the field in the male-dominated quarrying industry. As mine manager of Ward Road Quarry & Abbotsford gravel sales for Lafarge Canada’s GVA Aggregates, she credits her commitment to hard work and advancement for getting her to where she now, despite the obstacles she’s faced along the way.

When Sharma started at Lafarge, she was just 19. “It was my second job ever,” she says.

At such a young age, Sharma was sure she was taking a job to get her through school. Once she found her place at Lafarge, however, she realized she’d found a long-term future with the company.

“When I started, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. As I started progressing through the company — I never did finish any school —I really enjoyed all the opportunities that I was given and the training and the development and all the different experiences that I was able to have through staying with Lafarge,” she said. “Being able to grow has also been really nice. There are tons of opportunities, lots of support, training, development. Never a dull moment, that’s for sure. Everything’s always changing, and it allows for you to grow with those changes.”

Keeping up with a job Sharma calls dynamic and fluid, making every day different, is part of what attracts her to the work she does. Taking on leadership roles, including with the Women of Western Canada affinity group, helps Sharma make an impact for future generations.

“I know that everybody’s experiences are different. This really allows me to network with other women in the company and help mentor some of the younger, newer, less experienced women that are coming into the company and give them like a safe place to feel heard, and also give them advice and kind of share what has helped me,” she said.

Working with women in the industry to ensure they not only feel safe and comfortable coming to work, but to create a space where they can grow, thrive and make a bigger impact is important to Sharma, but getting to a stage where she feels comfortable taking on this kind of role wasn’t easy.

“People are definitely thankful we that we do it,” she says of the committee. “I think it’s hard to get people to kind of buy into it, because when you talk about being in a male dominated industry, you don’t want to stand out. So, when you join these kinds of committees, where you attend these kinds of events, you’re almost saying you don’t belong. So, it’s just been cool to watch people become more accepting of it, and just the engagement and the growth that we’ve had has been really cool.”

Sharma continues to see a future for herself at Lafarge, wanting to take advantage of the company’s size to grow into new areas.

“I think for me being able to see the other side of the business more on like the sales and commercial side would be a move that I’d want to make,” she said. “I also think that is one thing that I love about this company, you have that option to be able to jump from operations to sales and get a really good, rounded view of how the business works.”