John Maduri fondly reflects on the days when he stood knee high at his father Dominic’s side as the Italian immigrant built a construction business in Toronto on a foundation of hard work and perseverance.

Those early lessons have paid off in spades as Maduri has moved up the ranks to become one of Canada’s top players in the telecommunications industry.

But the 39-year-old executive vice-president of Telus Corp. and president of the Calgary-based Telus Business Solutions unit hasn’t forgotten his roots.

“Success for us will be a win in the East,” says Maduri of his company’s bold move into the eastern markets.

He says it with an air of supreme confidence, with a clenched fist and with his sleeves rolled up.

Just like his father.

Larry MacDougal, Business Edge
John Maduri admires Winston Churchill for his leadership qualities.

1. What are your most vivid memories of a boyhood in Toronto?
“I was probably a weird kid in a way because I was involved in business at a very early age. My parents are from Italy and couldn’t speak English, so when my dad started his business in 1967 or 1968 when I was about eight years old, my brother and I were our father’s English linguists. So my dad would tell me to write out the cheques and I’d take cheques to the bank for maybe $10,000. So I had an early introduction to the world of business. It was somewhat out of necessity, but it was also kind of fun. It also made me very money oriented.”

2. What was your boyhood dream?
“It revolved around business and being successful in business. As a young kid, I had quite a savings until I got into cars, and then I blew a lot of my savings. My dad was really fixated that his kids would be doctors, lawyers, accountants, engineers and so on. And surprise, surprise, my older brother’s an architect by trade and an MBA as well, I’m a chartered accountant and my younger brother is a professional engineer. That’s an immigrant thing too. Every generation has to do that much more.”

3. Who has had the greatest influence on your life?
“Three people. My wife (Wendy), because I think I was very narrow, unduly overly focused on work. I think she’s given me some balance. She’s a great partner and a great source of advice. As you come up through organizations, you realize it gets lonelier and lonelier and that advice becomes so much more valuable . . . . The second person would be my dad. He had a form of polio so that one of his legs is half the size of the other, so physically he was not the kind of guy who you would expect to start a construction company and work physically. But he has just tremendous perseverance, diligence, focus and lack of fear which I think are the hallmarks. The last person was Ted Rogers (president and CEO of Rogers Communications), who I worked for for 14 years. I thought the world of him.”

4. What was it about Rogers that made you admire him so?
“He had a real genuine pride about Canada and it kind of resonated in the way my dad always felt about the country. Clearly, Ted Rogers is a genius at a level that most Canadian businesspeople will only aspire to. People have counted him out so many times, but he had the drive to be successful.”

5. Was it difficult to leave Rogers Communications?
“Yes. But it was 14 years and it was time . . . . As much as I had lots of different roles at Rogers, when you’re at one place for 14 years, you create a safety net. People know you. You’re comfortable. And, at 37, I was still too young to be that comfortable.”

6. So what is Telus CEO Darren Entwistle like to work for compared to Rogers?
“Darren has a lot of the same attributes. Darren has a lot more people orientation than perhaps Ted did. He really believes you drive the organization at every level . . . . We have front-line leader sessions where he knows what’s going on because he’s talked to people at all levels. Whenever you try to drive change through an organization as a leader, it can get blocked as it goes down. But Darren’s right in there. He has a tremendous amount of energy. If you’ve been in a session with Darren all day, by the end of the day you’re exhausted mentally and physically.”

7. Describe your business philosophy?
“I’m a detail guy. I think you have to get into the business at various levels to understand whether you are really having an impact. The success of a business comes not just from a great strategy, but from its implementation. To really guage implementation, just as Darren does with his various approaches, you’ve got to get granular. You’ve got to get down and understand what’s happening with the people who are delivering products and talking to customers.”

8. What management style do you consider most effective in tapping potential and instilling loyalty in staff?
“Get people engaged, talk to people and be honest with people. And you’ve got to talk to people in clear language. If you come out with big slogans and big statements and then walk away and you’re not back for two quarters or whatever, I think you lose people’s confidence.”

9. Who is the famous person who most admire?
“Winston Churchill. He’s such a great leader. At so many points in his career, people wrote him off, but he always persevered.”

10. What’s your view of the way technology will drive businesses in the future?
“As much as people may be disappointed by what they see as the demise of the dot-coms, I think it’s just a phase of what is a longer-term trend. Businesses will have so much capability available to them driven by technology and the Internet, and our challenge in Business Solutions is to make that real for them. With all this great technology, the reality is companies can’t stand still. They can’t say: ‘I’m going to ignore the Internet, all the advances in voice technology, I don’t need to worry about the fact that there is really cool new software tools like sales force automation.’ You can’t ignore this stuff.”

11. How is the telecommunications slowdown affecting your business?
“I think that the telecommunications market, the communications market and the Internet enabling market is still quite strong. We at Telus have just completed two new (internet) hosting centres, including one here in Calgary. We have a very brisk business in hosting. People are figuring out that this stuff is not core competency stuff and that Telus can take over their hosting needs, their business Internet needs and do it more effectively than they can do it themselves.”

12. What’s your vision for Telus Business Solutions for 2005?
“In Western Canada, we will have transformed our business from how people perceive us from being about voice and long-distance to being an organization that serves small-to-medium enterprises in Internet-enabling their business. So we’re not just selling voice products, but we’re delivering solutions that are much broader than that. In Ontario, the objective is to be a recognized force in the Ontario market.”

13. Do you lose sleep over what your competitor Bell Canada is doing?
“I think it’s always important to be wary, to be thinking, to be watching what your competitors are doing and to be a couple steps ahead of them. So if that’s your definition of wary, yes. But do I think they’re invincible? No. I think we have a pretty good sense of where we can drive wedges into their home market and win business. I think we have a lot of opportunity to win in Ontario and we will win in Ontario.”

14. Is winning everything to you?
“Winning is a lot, but how you win is also important because winning is not a point in time, it’s a continuum. You want to win consistently.”

15. What’s your view of the way the world may change as a result of the terrorist attacks?
“Everyone has to be concerned about what’s going on in the world. It’s so important that we stress with our kids that you can’t live in fear, you can’t stop doing things, you can’t stop travelling and you have to keep charging forward.”

16. How do you manage to balance business and personal life?
“It’s very difficult, but on weekends I spend time with my family. People are always concerned that cellphones invade your life and take control of your life and say they can’t find time for themselves. Well, there’s an easy way to do that. There’s something called PWR. Power button. Off. . . . ”

17. How important is money to you?
“It’s probably less important than it was five years ago. You learn that money is not everything. When I was a kid, money was everything. My goal was to finish school, get a job, save money . . . I just wanted to accumulate money then. But then I turned 17 and bought my first car, a Camaro Z28. What would you expect an Italian youth in Toronto to drive? And there went $8,300.”

18. God taps you on the shoulder and says you can change one thing in your life?
“My hair (patting a balding top). I don’t know what else. I’ve got a great family, I’ve had great jobs and opportunities, I make great money, I have great people on my team, I really like the people I work with, but other than that, the hairline would be a lot. And maybe my weight, too. It’s hard taking it off by yourself. God could really help me.”

19. What do you see in your life’s crystal ball beyond the business world?
“I’m having a lot of fun with this. I really am. I think we’ve got a good run in front of us at Telus, and it would be sweet to win in the East. I’d love to see more of my parents in Toronto. I’d like to make some wine – not the wine we make every fall as a family, but cool wine. I’d like to spend more time with my wife to do some stuff as a couple.”

20. What stuff?
“I’d love to do Europe with my wife, backpacking.”

IN PROFILE: John Maduri

* Born/raised/age: Toronto, 39.
* Title: Executive vice-president, Telus Corp.; president, Telus Business Solutions.
* Education: York University (bachelor of business administration), chartered accountant.
* Family: Wife Wendy, daughter Melissa, 8, son Scott, 11.
* Career: Prior to moving to Calgary from Toronto to join Telus 18 months ago, Maduri spent 14 years with Rogers Cantel (now Rogers AT&T Wireless) in various senior positions, including chief financial officer. He has also worked as a chartered accountant.
* Passions: Reading historical books, cycling, shooting pool.

THE COMPANY: TELUS Corp.

* Brass: Darren Entwistle, CEO; George Cope, CEO, Telus Mobility; 11 vice-presidents, including John Maduri.
* Focus: Telus is western Canada's largest telecommunications company, providing communications products and services for Canadians at home, in the workplace and on the move. The Calgary-based Business Solutions unit provides voice, data, Internet protocol and wireless solutions to small- and medium-sized businesses across Canada.
* Stats: In its latest quarter through Sept. 30, Telus posted earnings of $87 million or 29 cents per share (compared to $151 million and 64 cents a share in the quarter for the previous year) and revenue of $1.85 billion (up 19.6 per cent from the previous year).
* Recent stock price (T-TSE): $23.56 (year range $17.70-$43.15).
* Website: www.telus.com
* Telus Business Solutions address/phone: 33rd Floor, 400 4th Ave. S.W., Calgary, AB T2P 0J4; 403-503-3400