TORONTO – Rogers Communications confirmed today it has hired former Apple Canada senior managing director Brent Johnston to be president, Rogers Wireless.
He stepped down from his position at Apple last week and starts at Rogers on Monday. Johnston is rather familiar with Rogers CEO Joe Natale, having worked under Natale (when Natale was Telus' second in command and then CEO) for 11 years as VP channel marketing, VP mobility solutions and SVP consumer marketing. Johnston left for Apple in February of 2016.
Bringing Johnston in is the headline of a bit of an executive shift where Phil Hartling, who had been acting president of Rogers consumer division, becomes president of Rogers residential (the wireline side) – and the entire technical side of the company has been shifted so all report to new CTO Jorge Fernandes.
EVP residential services Kelly Atkinson will be leaving the company as a result of these shifts.
Johnston has big, complex tasks in front of him, especially as the wireless industry focuses itself on 5G, what it can deliver and the challenges it poses. As CEO Natale told us in April, Rogers’ goal with 5G tech is to “bring together the right partnerships, develop the right skills and talent inside, to have very focused industry verticals in some of those key areas, to go after the opportunity, whether it's healthcare, or transportation, or natural resources. Those are all important industries to Canada, and all places that we're looking.”
No other moves are expected at this time.
Johnston photo borrowed from his LinkedIn page.
