WINNIPEG – Manitoba Telecom Services is in the market for a new CEO. 
The company announced today that its board of directors has begun a process to select a replacement for Bill Fraser (right), who plans to retire in 2006.
"Bill’s decision to retire next year provides us with ample time to conduct a thorough North American-wide search to identify the best possible candidates for Chief Executive Officer of MTS," said Thomas E. Stefanson, Chairman of the Board.
"During the search, Bill continues to have the complete confidence and support of the Board of Directors. Bill remains fully engaged in leading MTS and is integral to our business planning for 2006,” said Stefanson.
MTS has retained an international executive search firm to conduct a full North American-wide search.
Fraser’s legacy will probably be the transformation of MTS from a staid provincial ILEC to a broadband force that now offers digital television and – since its 2004 purchase of Allstream – a national presence.
He has been with MTS for almost 20 years, having joined MTS in 1986 as vice-president finance and was named president and CEO in 1994. He steered the company “through a generation of dramatic and unprecedented change in the telecommunications industry. From the introduction of competition, the breakup of the Stentor Alliance, through to the privatization of the company, and the acquisition of Allstream, Bill’s vision and insistence on prudent, steady growth has assured MTS’s solid market position today in an industry that has seen more change in the last ten years than the previous 90,” says the press release.
A native of Winnipeg, Fraser is a Chartered Accountant and held various senior positions in the federal government, including Director General Finance for the Department of Agriculture. In 1981 he was appointed to the position of Assistant Deputy Minister of Finance with the Manitoba government, at the time, the youngest person ever appointed to that position. He served until 1986, when then-Minister of Telephones Gary Doer, who is now Premier of Manitoba, appointed him to his first post with MTS, when it was privatized.
