Recently, I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to have a talk with Claude Sharma, the head of communications for Greater Sudbury Utilities. Claude and I talked about his journey to where he is today along with all of the twists and turns of the media.
I would love to start off by getting to know more about your childhood and the journey on what led you to be with Greater Sudbury Utilities?
So I grew up in Stoney Creek, Ontario and from a young age I knew right off the bat what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a sports broadcaster, I wanted to be in sports. But even before that, my dream was I wanted to be a WWE superstar, a WWF wrestler. Once I realized that wasn’t really obtainable, I had the dream of getting into sports, getting into news, getting into media. I grew up with two parents who watched the news all the time, news parents not sports parents, so that’s kind of what influenced me to take the stream of news and then I went to Western for a year in Communications but it wasn’t really for me cause I wanted to do more hands on, from the camera, use the camera. So I went to Mohawk College, in their Broadcast Journalism program. I was there for 3 years and after graduating there I had an internship at CHCH, the biggest broadcaster in Hamilton. So I got a job there after my internship, I was working more behind the scenes as the morning show producer. So booking guests, writing questions for guests, sponsorships, so more behind the scenes but it was good to get my feet wet and to see what the industry is all about. So after my time at CHCH, I got my first real job in journalism in 2008 in North Bay at Cogeco North Bay News. This is where I really learned how to become a storyteller, how to write, how to shoot video, edit video, how to network, how to book interviews, how to interview, it was kind of one of those jobs where you can make a lot of those mistakes. I’m very thankful for having that job, I was there for 4 years, I got to cover elections, I got to cover sports, I actually in that role I go to do a one on one interview with Justin Trudeau. It was the most nervous I had ever been for an interview in my life, I was so young I felt overwhelmed. I also got opportunities to interview Stephen Harper, the prime minister at the time, so just starting off and getting to do all these unique things. I could have had a career there but I wanted to move on, so from Cogeco North Bay, I then went to CTV Timmins in 2012 where I was a reporter. That was kind of a culture shock for me, being so far away from home, so 18 months later I moved back to North Bay to work for CTV North Bay, where I met my fiancé. At CTV North Bay I was doing reporting for news and sports, North Bay had just gotten the Battalion, OHL hockey team, so I was happy to be covering the OHL In their first year in North Bay they made the finals, so I was lucky enough to go to Guelph and document their journey. Then I applied to CTV Sudbury, so I went there as a CTV sports anchor and reporter, so my job was strictly covering sports five days a week.
So it was almost like my dream job and sometimes I would say to myself “I’m being paid for this?” It was so much fun and I had an absolute blast. But then a big turning point happened in my professional life. I was loving covering sports, but CTV cut their sports departments and the majority of CTV networks across Canada. So sports was seemingly eliminated and that was super heartbreaking, yes I still had a job covering news, but my passion at that time was sports.
“A lot had changed, you had an expectation that your professional life went in one direction and then it just changed immediately overnight.“
For me, I stayed at CTV Sudbury for another year and a half or so and then made the transfer to TVO, a more politics based station. I just wanted to make a shift into something I was more passionate about in politics and shying away from having the daily grind of needing to have a story everyday and instead was more digging deep journalism, more thought provoking. When I was with TVO, I was part of the Ontario Hubs Initiative where they hire a reporter in each part of the province, so I was covering the northeastern part of Ontario. I was there for under 2 years and along the way I started losing my passion for journalism. It started when sports were getting cut and it never hit back to my peak of covering sports. I thought maybe TVO would do that and it helped, but then I thought maybe it’s time to do what a lot of journalists do and that’s to get into communications, public and media relations. A lot of journalists will do this as a change of pace, with the hours being better in a lot of cases along with sometimes less stress. I left TVO to go to Hardline, which is a mining technology company, for a new position there in public relations, where I was there for 2 years. A lot of the things I did in journalism, I brought to the table here like shooting videos and telling stories. After that I took a bit of a risk to move to Greater Sudbury Utilities, where I currently have been for 2 years. I started off as a marketing communications specialist and fast forward 18-months later and I’m a Communications Officer, the head of communications.
Now I would love to hear more about what exactly it is you do with GSU, is this what you envisioned yourself doing?
From a young age, did I envision myself being head of communications at a utility company in Northern Ontario? No I did not, it was sports the whole time. But as I evolved out of the journalism career, it was something that I wanted. As for what I do, there are so many things. So for me, I do a lot of marketing, a lot of internal communications which are more important than ever before, as well as external communications with customers. I also do a lot of video shooting, storytelling, press releases, communicating with the media, event planning, video editing and writing as well. So every day is different. Not to mention I am also a part of 3 different boards, so I’m a board member with the United Way, CMHA (Canadian Mental Health Association) and I’m also a part of the diversity advisory committee with the Greater Sudbury police service. Part of my job is to network, to be out there and represent the company.
What is/was your favourite part about working in media?
Probably the fact that everyday is different. There are some of us who are wired, knowing what we’re doing everyday and having that set 9-5 and a lot of people enjoy that. But working in media and especially journalism, every single day was different. One day I would be covering the Sudbury Wolves trek to the playoffs and the next day I could be covering something in court, then the next day working 9-5 covering city council, the following night 4-midnight covering a Laurentian University sporting event, so every day was different, you’re meeting new people, you’re telling new stories and you have a responsibility to the public to tell those stories. So I think it was that everyday was different, unique and you have to use different skill sets on top of networking and sharing those stories.
How do you typically enjoy spending your time away from work?
I’m a pretty simple guy, I enjoy watching sports, particularly football and wrestling. I enjoy listening to audiobooks. I enjoy spending time with my family, fiancé and my cat, Maurice. My fiancé is actually pregnant with twins at the moment, so I know that is going to take up a lot of my time. If you were to interview me 6 months from now, I would answer this question differently, but we’re not there yet. I also enjoy volunteering and spending time on boards like the three boards I mentioned. I also went back to school for a two-year program at Cambrian College in Organization Management and the reason that I am taking this program is to work on some of my weaknesses. When I was in journalism I wasn’t really exposed to management, financial accounting, economics, so that’s what I’m focusing on right now and I should be graduating this summer.
Do you have any regrets over your career? If so, what is an example?
Regrets might be too harsh of a word, but instead I would ask if I would have done things differently. Because when I think of regrets, it’s almost something you lose sleep over, like what if I did this? So it’s not so much a regret but rather I wonder if I did this. Things I might have done differently is I would have joined these boards sooner, I would have done more volunteering sooner. I have the time, I just maybe didn’t have the proper guidance. Also in journalism, should I have been more aggressive in applying to other markets like maybe closer to home, Toronto maybe Ottawa. Was I good enough? That’s a different story, but did I try to? No I didn’t. And then you start thinking what if? What if I did apply down south or Ottawa, would I have met my fiancé? All those sort of things, so you may think it’s a regret, but then good things happen along the way. So I think it would be volunteering earlier, along with not being so scared. I was always scared of failure, like ‘what if I apply here and they don’t take me?’ But who cares? They said no, move on everyone moves on. I’ve been rejected so many times that I’m used to it now.
Did you ever second guess your career choice? If so, why and how did you overcome it?
Getting into journalism, no not at all. Getting into sports, not at all. But when I left journalism, when I left media to go into public relations and communications, there was some second guessing. Because think of it, you’re taking a risk and leaving something that you’re so comfortable with and something that you build a reputation in, in a certain industry that you still like, maybe not as much as you once did, but you can go to work everyday knowing that you’re capable of doing your job. I never had any self doubt, I never thought that I can’t do this anymore. But then making the switch to a totally different job, while yes there are some transferable skills, it is a totally different field and I didn’t know a single person as well. So I did second guess, thinking what if I fail? But then I thought to myself well, I can always go back to journalism. That was kind of what I built into my mind, thinking if I fail here I can always go back. Would I go back to the same job? Who knows, but I knew I had that in my back pocket. But then I thought, I’m the one applying, I’m not being forced out, I’m making this choice. So it’s on me to make the most of it and I feel like I did make the most of it. Leading up to it, did I second guess myself? Of course I did, who wouldn’t really when you’re switching careers. But how I overcame it was, give yourself those 6 months or the year and try it. You can’t knock it before you try it. What if I said no I’m gonna stay in journalism, maybe I would have a regret then, not a what if. So I think I overcame it by doing it, instead of saying I was gonna do it, I put in the time.
If you could give advice to your younger self now, what would it be?
I think professionally speaking, some advice I would give myself would be to take more risks and stop fearing failure.
“Just because something doesn’t happen and you consider it a failure, use it as a learning opportunity, so fail forward.”
I would’ve volunteered earlier, been a part of these boards earlier and maybe it was because I was in journalism and I thought there would be a conflict of interest or maybe it was me being lazy and being too comfortable in my job. So I would say take more risks, don’t worry about failing so much, the worst people can say when you apply for a job is no. I also think that I should have reached out to mentors earlier, my heroes in life are my parents, they’re both retired, live in southern Ontario, I look up to them and everything. But sometimes there are things you need to seek advice for, maybe outside of your family. So maybe I would’ve tried to take on a mentor earlier and get that advice. Again, it’s that fear of reaching out to somebody, the fear of being rejected. But they can help you with so many things, they can open doors for you and some mentors will tell you things that you need to hear rather than something you want to hear. So I think to summarize this all it would be to take more risks, be less afraid and seek mentorship when those opportunities come up.
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