Rogers executive Thomas Turner joins advisory committee of ...
Rogers Communications Inc. executive Thomas Turner has joined the advisory committee to the Rogers Control Trust, a group whose membership has dwindled in recent years amid the passing of several of its members.
Two sources confirmed to The Globe and Mail that Mr. Turner, who is the president of Rogers Business, has joined the advisory committee. The Globe is not identifying the sources as they are not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. The sources did not specify when Mr. Turner joined the committee or whether any other members have recently been added. A Rogers spokesperson declined to comment.
The Rogers Control Trust steers the telecom and media giant through its ownership of 97.5 per cent of the company’s voting Class A shares.
In the fall of 2021, Edward Rogers, the son of the company’s late founder, used his position as the chair of the Rogers Control Trust to reconstitute the company’s board, removing five independent directors and replacing them with his own slate of handpicked candidates.
He was able to do so despite opposition from his mother and two of his sisters because he had the support of two-thirds of the 10-member committee. The new board then fired the company’s CEO, Joe Natale, replacing him with its former chief financial officer, Tony Staffieri.
Since then, three members of the advisory committee have passed away: Rogers family matriarch Loretta Rogers, former chairman Alan Horn and longtime director Phil Lind.
Mr. Turner, who has more than 30 years of experience at Rogers in the areas of business planning and sales and customer service, was also recently added to the telecom’s executive leadership team.
Mr. Staffieri announced the change in a Sept. 11 note to employees, in which he also stated that Robert Dépatie, president and chief operating officer of the telecom’s home and business division, will be retiring at the end of the year.
In the e-mail, Mr. Staffieri praised Mr. Turner for making “strong and steady progress in driving double-digit growth” over the past year as president of Rogers Business.
Other members of the advisory committee include Mr. Rogers and his three sisters – Lisa Rogers, Melinda Rogers Hixon and Martha Rogers – as well as former Toronto mayor John Tory, Loretta Rogers’s nephew David Robinson and Toby Hull, the childhood best friend of company founder Ted Rogers.
