2025 Star Women in Convenience winner: Emily Sparrow

Emily Sparrow                

National Category Manager, Alcohol               

Petro-Canada, a Suncor business   

How did you get into this business? 

I worked for five years on the vendor side of the business as a national account manager for Petro-Canada’s prepaid/gift card business. This gave me the opportunity to work closely with the category management team. I was so impressed by the high impact work they were doing that I decided to join them in 2020.

What are you most proud of during the last 12-18 months?

Working as the project team lead to launch alcohol at our sites in Ontario. I am incredibly proud of what the team accomplished in only five short months to bring a brand-new category to our largest market. Being the alcohol category manager as well, I continue to see the positive impact of the team’s hard work which is very rewarding.

What do you like most about your job?

No two days are the same! Whether you’re working through new challenges, celebrating wins or engaging with different colleagues or departments, there are opportunities for learning and growth every day.

What's the best advice you ever received? 

Don’t waste a good mistake; learn from it. Don’t be afraid to try new things and fail, as that’s often when we learn the most and it helps build resilience and adaptability.

What excites you most about the future of this channel? 

It’s not often a new category is launched in our channel, and as we head into our first summer selling alcohol at our Ontario sites, we have a unique opportunity to gain insight on how the launch of a new category can change consumer shopping behaviour. I’m excited to see its impact on all categories in-store.