Following our latest cohort of long-service employees, we have decided to take a closer look at the careers of two of them, Head of Project Support, Gemma Metcalfe, and Project Support Manager (incl. PFT & Equipment Hire), Claire Crowe, who both received long service, glass plaque awards last year.  
 

Gemma Metcalfe 

Gemma, who reached her 10-year anniversary at Sigma in 2024, currently runs project support within the projects division, working alongside the projects and M&E teams, supporting them with plant, labour and client invoicing.  

While she’s now an expert in her field, Gemma’s pathway into the industry came more by luck than design. After finishing college and taking a gap year, she needed to start working and took a job in the construction and property division at Asda. During her five years with the company, she had several roles in the division, starting with administration and progressing into project management.  

It was through her project management role that she started working alongside Sigma, with the company being one of Asda’s key suppliers. Gemma really enjoyed working with the Sigma team and after Projects Division Director, Tom Fletcher, suggested that she look for an opportunity at Sigma, she joined the company as a supply chain manager.  

Gemma’s first role at Sigma was looking after the company’s Australian contract, which included working on equipment call off and management, and involved her travelling to Melbourne to meet the Australian team. Following this, she moved across to the Boots account, during which Sigma won a huge Boots contract with warehousing and consolidation that led Gemma to work alongside the warehouse and transport teams to get the contract set up. For the next three years, she continued working with warehousing on strategic rollouts.  

The next stage in Gemma’s Sigma career saw her return to the projects division where she eventually became part of the labour planning team. Over the last five years, her team has expanded from project labour planning for trades like shop fitters, merchandisers and site managers, to include services like construction planning, multiskilled operatives, site management, plant teams and the hire desk. There is also a project financials cost administration team that supports the M&E and projects divisions.  

With an experienced and stable team in place, Gemma is now able to focus more on business development and continuous improvement. A big part of Sigma’s draw for Gemma is that the company’s growth always creates opportunities. She likes the fast pace of change, the autonomy, and the career development opportunities.   
 

Claire Crowe 

Claire, who celebrated 15 years at Sigma in 2024, is a Project Support Manager (incl. PFT & Equipment Hire) in the project support division and reports to Gemma. Currently, she looks after the project financial, equipment hire, and project support teams.  

After graduating with a degree in media studies and a period of temping, Claire eventually came to work for the company that was bought out and became Sigma. Her role as a project coordinator was one she continued when Sigma took over. Back then, the projects division was much smaller and had fewer clients. Asda was the company’s main client and Claire’s role was to raise orders for Asda to ensure that the retail fitout team had all the fixtures on-site in time for the work to begin. 

As the company grew, her team developed into a support function for the projects and M&E divisions and Claire’s role expanded into raising purchase orders, processing invoices, sending out job/site packs and ensuring payments were made to partners and were received from clients.  

Further growth eventually led to these jobs being divided up amongst newly created teams, the finance team, project support team and equipment hire team. At this time, Claire moved to the finance team, which was responsible for ensuring purchase orders were received, systems were kept up to date and Sigma was paid for its work.  

The company’s decision to consolidate the teams means that in her current role, Claire now manages all three. The equipment hire team became her responsibility at the beginning of last year, and the support function was added later. With Claire’s long experience at the company, it made sense for her to manage these teams.  

Claire sees her progression in the company happening naturally as the business has grown over the years. She said, “It’s a great company to work for, and the people make the company.”  She intends to stay at Sigma in her current role.  

In a growing company where things move fast, long service personnel, like Gemma and Claire, bring tangible benefits. Their long experience with our business and our clients provides constancy and stability during periods of change and provides guidance, support and expertise for those with lesser experience. We thank them both for their long service with Sigma and their dedication to the projects division and look forward to seeing their careers flourish even more in the years to come.