Darren Entwistle lifts himself out of his seat inside Telus’ (TSX:T) new headquarters in downtown Vancouver and points out the office window.
“Isn’t it cool?” asks the CEO of the telecom giant, who’s standing in a cantilevered room hanging above a reception area.
Both the interior of the building and the street below are visible to anyone looking through the room’s glass-panelled walls.
It is indeed cool.
The building is considered Vancouver’s greenest office tower, having posted the highest Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum score in the city.
Rainwater is collected from the outside to flush toilets, and nearly 300 solar panels sit at the top of the building to generate approximately 65,000 kilowatt hours annually.
It’s the official opening of Telus Garden, and the timing is right for Entwistle, who just returned to the company’s helm in August after departing as CEO a year ago.
But he said he’s back for the long term, “and so, without being too definitive about it, that could be construed as five years.”
Entwistle’s tenure serving solely as executive chairman – a role created specifically for him when he resigned as CEO – was interrupted this year when his successor abruptly announced he was leaving Telus.
But the transition back has “gone very smoothly,” he said.
“And I don’t think that’s very surprising. I did the role for 14 years. So it’s extremely familiar to me. I’m familiar to my team members.
Replacement CEO Joe Natale said in August he wouldn’t move from Toronto to the company’s headquarters in Vancouver in 2017 as had been planned.
Natale cited family reasons for wanting to stay in Toronto, whereas it was family reasons that brought Entwistle to Vancouver 15 year ago.
The Canadian expat had spent a decade living in England, where he got married, and was leading Cable & Wireless Communications plc’s British and European operations by the time his twins were born.
“The job opportunity at Telus came up,” he told Business in Vancouver.
“We thought, ‘Well, there’s no better place to raise a family than Vancouver when you look at the society, the mountains, the water, the Interior of B.C.’”
Entwistle’s daughter is an artist, but she became hooked on global development after travelling to Kenya two summers ago to build a girls’ school as part of the Me To We social enterprise.
“She neglects her art because she wants to be focused on global development,” the CEO said, adding the 16-year-old flew to Ecuador in March to build another school.
“And I would argue with her and say, ‘Is there anything more synergistic than the communications vehicle art represents and changing the world?’”
Her twin brother is “more about sports, activity and what party he’s going to go to on any particular weekend,” a grinning Entwistle said.
“It’s an interesting dichotomy between the two of them.”
Entwistle’s own family life growing up wasn’t nearly as stable as his children’s.
Cancer took his mother when he was 11. His father also died prematurely years later, but this time it was a result of mistakes made at the hospital.
The Montreal-born exec stayed close to home as a young man, earning a bachelor’s degree in economics from Concordia University and an MBA in finance from McGill University.
He later received a diploma in network engineering from the University of Toronto before leaving to work in the U.K., working his way up the corporate ladder at Cable & Wireless.
He said his schooling provided some basis for his leadership skills because “leaders know their numbers,” but most of his management style comes from learning from mistakes made over the years.
“Too many people are wanting to suppress their mistakes or become indecisive because of fears of making mistakes,” he said.
“If you recognize that’s a natural aspect of the job, you’re always making decisions with incomplete information. You’re not going to get every decision right, but what you can do is learn from every decision you get wrong and try to become a better leader as a result.”
Europe was clearly ahead of the curve compared with Canada when it came to the progression of wireless systems two decades ago.
Entwistle felt he was being drawn back to Canada not just for family reasons, but to see if he could make a big impact on what he saw as the future of telecommunications.
“Back in 2000, people had the view the long-term penetration of wireless would be 40%. I thought this was a device that was going to be ubiquitous. We’ll have 100% penetration,” he said. “There was an opportunity here for a significant advancement in innovation, and that’s what I found tremendously exciting about Telus.”
@reporton
