What are your best and your worst habit?
Both are linked. The good one: I have the gift of focusing on one thing at a time. I don’t think about something else. But if I think of something and people around tell me, I don’t always react and it can become frustrating for them.
What do you do when you need to find an idea?
It works for most people: I put the subject on the side, I let stand, and I come back there later. Sometimes you have to simmer. Basically, Bell’s cultural discipline is strong. We have a way of acting, but I have a different leadership style. I have a good structure, but I have the will to try new ideas. Perhaps our acquisition of Ziply in the United States would not have taken place, otherwise.
What word can you no longer endure?
A word overused: transformation. Canada is evolving, the world is changing, companies are changing, but we are talking about transformation to the point that it doesn’t mean anything. I try to scratch this word when using it. It’s like “innovation”. It is as if we had stayed on site for 10 years.
What advice would you give to the younger version of you?
I was a lawyer at Stikeman Elliott for 12 years, before Bell. My advice is more personal: take the time to savor the small moments that are important in a life. Family dinners, a goal counted by a child, family vacation. These are precious moments that pass quickly.
What do you always hang out in your pockets/bag?
A piece of torn paper that I keep in my wallet-a 1000 dinars ticket, the currency of the ex-Yugoslavia, where part of my family lives. When I was little, my grand-uncle gave me this post to spend it, then I never saw him again, a few days later he died. I was born in Montreal, I grew up in Longueuil, but we were going to visit my family there, in a small village. It is a memory.
Besides emails or texts, what application could you no longer do without your phone?
TSN and RDS applications. This is my entertainment. When I travel and I have a moment, I put the match. Hockey and football, both the NFL and the CFL. As owner of the Toronto Argonauts (CFL), I won two Gray Cup rings.
What do you do to congratulate or thank someone?
I write a note by hand. It’s my habit. I have one to do after this interview, moreover, for a technician who explained to me what he was doing every day and I will write to him to thank him. It is not only for our employees.
Are you more radio, Briado or Music?
Music ! Anyway. I listen to Apple Music or my records at home, Iheart Radio in the car. According to where I am in Canada, I take the time to listen to our local radio. The station of my childhood is Chom FM.
What was your worst expense?
It still relates to music – at my adolescence, I worked a summer under construction and it was well paid, and I spent everything to buy a stereo channel of $ 2,000, an expense that had no common sense. I still have it in a closet. With five feet high speakers!
A musical artist who is part of the soundtrack of your adolescence and what does that remind you?
My two favorite albums are The Wall et Animals From Pink Floyd, and my favorite group is Pearl Jam. Today I listen to everything. If I am lucky to go see Pearl Jam in concert, I don’t miss her. In adolescence, as soon as we were able to drive, in Longueuil and Montreal, my teenage soundtrack, it was The Cars, the album Heartbeat City.
