Wireless from Vancouver, George Cope, breathlessly speaking a mile a minute on a cross-country tour, sounds like a man who has a plane to catch. He does.

That’s the nature of Cope’s business.

In his 15 years in the speed-of-light wireless game, the six-foot-eight one-time university basketball star has learned only too well the fast break is the only way to play this game.

TELUS Mobility photo
TELUS Mobility's George Cope has his eye on 10 million potential new clients.

Cope, president and CEO of Telus Mobility, spearheaded the phenomenal growth story of Clearnet, which was acquired by Telus in October 2000 for $6.6 billion, the largest deal in Canadian telecom history.

Now, the 40-year-old native of Port Perry, Ont., faces perhaps his most daunting challenge as Telus Mobility faces off against its arch rival, Bell Mobility, in an intensely competitive Canadian wireless arena and tough telecom market.

But Cope welcomes the challenge, and in this interview conducted at breakneck speed, he leaves the impression he won’t rest easy until the entire wireless market is tapped.

1. Describe your business philosophy?

“I like to be a part of something that is fun. I like working with people and giving people an opportunity to share in the rewards of the business. I philosophically don’t believe in keeping all the rewards for one person. I think you have to share them. I think that’s why Darren (Telus CEO Entwistle) and I line up very nicely. When I joined Telus and he showed the leadership of issuing options to all employees of Telus, that was very consistent with the culture I was associated with (at) Clearnet.”

2. Is winning everything?

“No, no, no. Enjoying it is probably what counts to me the most. I think the challenge of taking on intelligent competitors in the marketplace is a fun thing and a fun way to make a living. I’ve been very fortunate to be a part of the fastest-growing consumer product in the history of the world, that being wireless. I’ve been fortunate enough to have entered that industry and not with any great wisdom, quite frankly. I was out of school (University of Western Ontario), I needed a job and I had some entrepreneurial ideas. I was just fortunate to catch a wave.”

3. To what do you attribute your success in building Clearnet?

“I don’t make a living talking about myself because my whole belief is that this doesn’t happen because of one leader. But I think, as I’ve said to people, that if you’re going to start a business with no capital and start a business that has no revenue and you’re going to take on the likes of Bell and Rogers and have to raise $3 billion (as was the case with Clearnet), I would say you’d have to be pretty good at sales. So most people would probably say that sales is an important ingredient of what would make up part of my personality. I also think it’s important to be passionate about what we’re doing. Passion is something that everybody can feed off of and you can do some really neat things with that. Clearly, you have to have some self-confidence, a vision and passion about what you’re doing.”

4. Who has had the greatest influence on your life?

“My parents were a great influence in showing me that you can do anything you want if you set your mind to it and do it in a way that co-operates with other people as opposed to stepping over people.”

5. Did you have a business mentor?

“It was a gentleman named David Simmonds (who died last year), who was the founder of a company called Lenbrook (Industries) and was really the founding member who provided the initial capital of the first company I ran, which became Clearnet. He was 58, and he took a chance on a 24-year-old and let him run one of his businesses. Without that opportunity, I certainly wouldn’t be where I am today.”

6. What has been the most rewarding part of heading Telus Mobility over the last 18 months?

“It’s been very rewarding the way two competing companies came together and have been very successful in the marketplace on a national basis. Our employee morale, according to our recent survey, is up from the time of the merger (October 2000). We’re growing our business and we’re meeting our financial targets for the wireless business. Sometimes, in merger stories, that isn’t what happens. In this case, it has been successful, and because of that, it doesn’t get written about as much as those (mergers) that don’t work out these days. Well, one merger or acquisition that hasn’t failed is Telus’s acquisition of Clearnet, where we’re competing very nicely in the marketplace against the likes of Bell, Microsoft and Rogers.”

7. Why do you think Telus retained you and other executives to lead Telus Mobility after Clearnet was acquired?

“I think Darren (Entwistle) and I saw eye to eye very quickly. He and I are similar in age and we also have similar backgrounds. Given my background of leading a public wireless carrier, I think he was comfortable with my credentials. I was young in this industry and it seemed like a fun opportunity to pursue. I think we were mutually excited about doing something bigger than what Telus Mobility and Clearnet could do individually.”

8. What part of Canada represents your hottest market right now?

“It moves around. Recently, an important market was our launch in Winnipeg over the past three or four months. We’ve been very successful in growing in that marketplace. The whole country is growing at a pace of almost two million new (wireless phone) subscribers per year and we expect that to happen again this year.”

9. Has Alberta continued to be one of your fastest growth areas?

“Alberta continues to be the leader in Canada in terms of wireless penetration (wireless phone use per capita). That’s a very important market to us and particularly because the business climate has been so strong.”

10. Are you pleased with Telus Mobility’s growth?

“Last year, we exceeded our cash-flow growth expectation and we did a little over 400,000 (subscriber) additions. We’d like to have done a few more subscribers but, quite frankly, we were more focused on growing our cash flow. Although we love every client, not all our clients are the same. A client who takes our Mike product that can generate a business type of revenue can be a little different than a prepaid client. We want them all, but a mix is very important in this business. This year, our goal is to have somewhere between 420,000 and 450,000 (subscriber) additions this year. We’ve just finished our first quarter, so I can’t comment, but we’re certainly hopeful that that’s achievable. There are about 2.6 million people who have wireless phones from the new Telus Mobility.”

11. What has it been like working through the recent economic downturn that has had such a large impact on the telecom industry?

“I’d be less than honest if I didn’t say we were disappointed with the share performance for Telus, but I think, quite frankly, a lot of that has been external from Telus because the telecom world has been hit very hard. We’ve been executing in the last year-and-a-half and, at some point, our execution of business on a national basis for Telus will be rewarded. It would be less than honest to say we’re not disappointed by that, but on a relative basis, we’re probably doing better than some. Still, the wireless industry is one of few industries last year that grew by 15 to 20 per cent. Having said that, we’ve had clients obviously who may have downsized so we’ve seen those impacts. We’ve grown, but not as quickly as we would have without the economic slowdown.”

12. What’s your outlook for the wireless phone market?

“We still have about 10 million more Canadians we believe will buy wireless phones in the next five years and obviously our job at Telus Mobility is to get our fair share of those new clients.”

13. So when’s the next great bull market for the telecom industry?

“If I knew that, I’d probably be doing something else for a living. I’d be called an investment banker and not a wireless guy.”

“In the context of the wireless industry, there are some regulatory developments in the U.S. at the end of this year that will probably bring about some consolidation of the U.S. wireless industry, and I think that bodes well for a turnaround in wireless stocks within telecom on a North American basis.”

14. What’s your vision for Telus Mobility?

“The first priority, obviously, is always to our shareholders and that’s to make sure we keep building our cash flow at 25 to 30 per cent a year, and we want to do that this year and believe it’s achievable. And we want to continue doing that going forward. But the fun part of the industry is always the new toys and the new technology.”

15. What aspect of your technology are you most excited about?

“Over the next three months, we’ll be rolling out our 1X network, which is a high-speed data network. People will be able to use their laptop computer by simply plugging a card into the side of their laptop and accessing information wirelessly. That’s going to take the wireless industry to a brand-new level. In other words, where voice became untethered, if you will, in 1985 with the launch of cellular, data will become untethered in 2002 as we begin to roll out our data services.”

16. What are the other hot growth areas of your business?

“From our end, in Alberta specifically, (it’s) the rollout of the Mike network which allows us to do dispatch, phone and text messaging all on one handset. We think that is perfectly suited for our marketplace in Alberta. That technology today has over 10 million users in North America and, frankly, we’ve been investing millions of dollars in Alberta to duplicate our current cellular footprint with our Mike network footprint. So business users from Telus will have two choices of product – our traditional PCS side and also our product that integrates all services into one.”

17. Do you lose sleep over what Bell Mobility is doing?

“I lose sleep over lots of things. I lose sleep over what my kids are doing. But certainly all of our competitors keep me up at night and I’m sure we keep them up at night too. Obviously, we have Bell coming into Western Canada. They’re a strong competitor. They will get their fair share of the market, for sure. Given that much of my business career has been competing as a small guy (with Clearnet) with the likes of Bell in Eastern Canada, they’re a competitor, but I don’t think I’ve been up any more than I have been over the last 15 years.”

18. Who is the business leader you most admire?

“The person I am in great awe of is Bill Gates (Microsoft chairman). Despite all the regulatory talk, anybody who can create an entity from ground zero and in 20 years become the largest enterprise in the world is clearly visionary.”

19. Ideally, how long would you want to stay in your current job?

“As long as I’m having fun. I’d like to think I’ve got a fair bit more to do in the business community and I always like to help in other charitable ways.”

20. What do you see in your life’s crystal ball, say when you’re 50 and beyond?

“Hopefully, I’ll be on a beach somewhere reading about what other people are doing in the telecom industry.”

IN PROFILE: George Cope

* Born/lives/age: Port Perry, Ont.; Ajax, Ont.; 40.

* Title: President/CEO, Telus Mobility.

* Education: University of Western Ontario (honours, business administration).

* Family: Wife Tami, daughter Jillian, twin sons Blair and Stephen, 12.

* Career: Prior to joining Telus Mobility as president and CEO 18 months ago, Cope was president and CEO of Clearnet since 1987. Under his stewardship, Clearnet became a public company that was acquired by Telus in October 2000 for $6.6 billion, the largest deal in Canadian telecom history.

* Awards/Affiliations: Cope is a past recipient of Canada's Top 40 Under 40 Award for executives and the American Marketing Association's marketer of the year. He is a director of OnX Inc., the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association and the Toronto General and Western Hospital Foundation, as well as an advisory board member of University of Western Ontario's Richard Ivey School of Business.

* Claim to fame: Cope was a star basketball player at the University of Western Ontario.

THE COMPANY: Telus Mobility

* Profile: Telus Mobility is the national wireless telecommunications arm of Telus Corp., providing digital wireless voice, data and Internet services to business and consumer clients via two digital wireless networks – Telus Mobility PCL and Mike.

* Mission: To efficiently develop friendly wireless solutions that are easy to sell, buy and use and that deliver clear value to clients, channels, employees and shareholders.

* Stat: Telus Mobility has approximately 2.6 million clients.

* Website: www.telusmobility.com

* Corporate phone: Calgary 403-387-5825, Edmonton 780-732-2901.