TORONTO – Wind Mobile’s Tony Lacavera is relinquishing his CEO title to COO Pietro Cordova, a month after his investment company Globalive Capital moved to acquire VimpelCom’s direct and indirect debt and equity interests in the Canadian wireless company, with the help of several other financial backers.
Lacavera, pictured, will remain as Wind Mobile's chairman and a shareholder, and will have an active role at the board level, including working with the company on business planning and strategy, the company said Monday. Wind Mobile now has more than 750,000 customers in Canada.
"As an entrepreneur, my vision was to ignite change across the wireless landscape in Canada, bringing more competition, better prices and superior service to Canadians and that is exactly what we did”, Lacavera said in a statement. “Wind Mobile is on a solid profitable growth track, and I am confident Pietro will bring the same strong leadership to the Wind CEO position that he has demonstrated successfully over the past two years as COO."
Cordova joined Wind Mobile in July 2012 from VimpelCom. “He’s gradually migrated away from VimpelCom and I’m very happy to give the guy the vote of confidence," Lacavera said in an interview with Cartt.ca.
“The strategy of having new entrants compete against each other while the incumbents sit back and watch us pound the crap out of each other… those days are gone.” – Tony Lacavera, Wind
Lacavera insists he's not going anywhere, now that the company is pointed in the right direction (six months and counting of being EBITDA positive, he says, plus various legal and regulatory wins). “Obviously, I just bought out VimpelCom, so I’m going to stay very active."
One way he plans on being active is making sure LTE is rolled out as quickly as possible (after it buys more spectrum) and by pursuing merger opportunities – or at least pushing the idea of more co-operation between the independent players. “We should look at some sort of co-operation with the other new entrants," he said. “Those of us who are remaining” need to work together, he added. “The strategy of having new entrants compete against each other while the incumbents sit back and watch us pound the crap out of each other… those days are gone.”
“It has been a pleasure working with Tony for the last two years and I look forward to continue working with him in his new capacity at Wind," Cordova said in the press release. "Wind 2.0 is on solid ground, and I look forward to providing my ongoing support and leadership to the organization as we enter a very exciting phase in the life of Wind."
