WIND CHILL
CEO Krstajic wants to talk a lot less about his wireless firm.
TORONTO • Alek Krstajic, the new chief executive at Wind Mobile Corp., is pledging to go about his business as the industry’s underdog and talk a lot less about what he’s doing because, well, he doesn’t have to.
“Wind is a private company, and going forward we won’t be sharing much info or numbers,” he said on Tuesday during a keynote speech at the Canadian Telecom Summit. Krstajic quickly set a tone in his first public address as CEO that differs vastly from the boisterous one of the company’s founder, Anthony Lacavera.
After stints at Bell Mobility, Rogers Cable and faltered new entrant Public Mobile, which was sold to Telus Corp., industry veteran Krstajic moved into the corner office at Wind in March as part of a major overhaul, which ushered in a new chairman and two new directors. A source close to Wind told the National Post that the hiring was done to create proper processes and curtailing the unnecessary disclosures is an early fruit of that labour.
While Krstajic may take a quieter path to the finish line, he shares the same goal that Lacavera, an investor and Wind’s honourary chair, always has: to thrive as the fourth choice for wireless consumers in Canada. Like his predecessors, Krstajic reiterated that this objective demands access to coveted airwaves to fulfill.
“What truly levels the playing field in our sector is spectrum,” Krstajic said. “You gotta have it. If you don’t, you’re just not in the game.”
Wind serves roughly 800,000 cellphone subscribers in Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta, according to the latest figures released by the company. It is also sitting on unused spectrum licences in other places across Canada, which were bought in auctions that locked out the incumbents from bidding.
The long-festering capacity-connectivity debate was sparked again Tuesday during the summit’s regulatory panel, which featured five regulatory executives who proudly wore their employers’ slant.
“We need more spectrum, as customers use and demand more data-hungry services on our network,” Bob Boron, the chief regulatory officer at Wind, asserted during the discussion. He pointed out the gaping hole in Wind’s chest of low-band spectrum, adding that securing licences to these airwaves is “something that we need to work with regulators in terms of setting up the auction framework.”
Boron’s comments about his desire to acquire more coveted real estate garnered flack from Ted Woodhead, the senior vice-president of federal government and regulatory affairs at Telus. “You’re absolutely right, you need spectrum,” Woodhead said. “But you also have to pay for it. And even when you were given an opportunity to buy it and you don’t, I question why you need further regulatory assistance.”