2015 Game Changer: Miranda Leurquin

When Miranda Leurquin started at The Mosaic Co., the consulting company had 30 employees and a smattering of clients. Nine years later, the company is 200 strong and nationally works with utilities companies and the oil and gas industry.

As if a 3,900 percent increase weren’t enough for a human resources team to handle, know this: Leurquin, 35, worked primarily on her own during the growth spurt because she was the only one in the company with workforce management skills.

“The sheer level of growth has been so exciting, and it’s one of those things I’ve thrived off of,” she wrote. “We’re the same Mosaic, but we’re bigger.” She now has three recruiters in California and a coordinator in her Washington-based office.

One of Leurquin’s best tools in the hunt for candidates to help grow the company from $10 million in 2009 to $32 million today has been social media, which she pioneered for the firm. Before video became an everyday way to conduct interviews with candidates, Mosaic was saving money by connecting with candidates via Skype — a method that attracted employees interested in working for tech-savvy companies.

Even though she has gotten her footing in the organization, Leurquin still faces challenges. As she sees it, building an organization is tough, but maintaining it while it grows is even harder.

She also has to align her daily duties to business results. “There is a perception about HR — sometimes fair, sometimes not — and I work hard every day for me and my team to be seen as a critical part of Mosaic’s success by always pushing us forward,” she wrote. “This is definitely a motivator for me personally; I like to prove people wrong.”

But Leurquin’s biggest motivators are Mosaic’s people and culture.

“From day one when I started here, it was all about servant leadership,” she wrote. “There’s such a positive vibe here at Mosaic that wanting to give back to that and show people what a great company we are is part of what inspires me. I love the company, I love the people, and I feel like I am part of the ownership of the company.”