Nadir Mohamed, CA

For Nadir Mohamed, CA, president and chief operating officer of Rogers AT&T Wireless, it's the "In the mid-198os, when I was with BC Tel, I was fortunate enough to be part of the team which wrote the business plan for the company's new cellular division, and I was hooked," he explains. It was three wonderful years, and we had the first profitable company in the wireless industry."

A native of Tanzania, East Africa, Mohamed moved to Vancouver to attend the University of British Columbia where he completed an undergraduate degree in commerce in 1978. He articled with Price Waterhouse (now PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP) and received his CA designation in 198o. That same year, he joined BC Tel in their corporate finance area.

`?after that great experience getting the cellular division going, I returned to corporate finance for a few years, and then in iggo, Brian Canfield, the current chair of Telus, tapped me to lead a task force to see where the telecom business was heading," Mohamed says. "It was a really fascinating assignment, and though the conclusions may sound obvious today with what we know and have experienced, at the time they were profound."

Mohamed and his colleagues discovered that customers were re-defining the `voice business; and that there was a big gap between the company and their customers' view of the business.

"We were missing out on the whole data (networking) world," he points out. 'After the research was complete, I was asked to lead the company's entry into the data business, and I spent the next several years launching new avenues of business such as Sympatico, the internet service and the first cable operation via a telecom in Canada."

In the mid-1990s, Mohamed returned to the wireless world as president and chief operating officer of BC Tel Mobility, a company with over $300 million in annual revenue and 800 employees. Two months ago, he left Vancouver for Toronto and the opportunity to head up the leading wireless company in Canada.

"I love this business, and I have great respect for the Rogers Group of Companies," Mohamed explains. "Joining Rogers is a terrific opportunity. There is the potential for tremendous growth in the area of communications convergence with products like web phones and the mobile internet, and I'll be in on the ground floor of the wireless web explosion. In this business, scale and scope are extremely important, and Rogers has the resources and alliances to be truly global."

Mohamed credits his CA articling days with a large measure of his success.

"I feel strongly that there is a great deal to be learned by apprenticing at a public accounting firm," he says. "First of all, you get exposure to the language of business, and secondly, you get exposure to so many businesses during your CA training.

"And, during an early phase of your career, you have the chance to interact with very senior people from a variety of industries," he points out. "It helps you get comfortable in executive settings as well as learning to work with your peers."

Mohamed admits that he selected the CA program, at least in part, because of the influence of peers.

"It was the people I met in university as well as the fact that my father was always involved in business - he had a hardware business in Tanzania - and several of my university friends became CAs as well," he says.

In fact, Mohamed's wife of 18 years, Shabin, is also a Chartered Accountant, most recently employed with the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency in Vancouver. His sister Yasmin is a CA with the Bank of Montreal in Toronto.

In his spare time, he jogs, plays squad and tennis, and indulges his passion for jazz music by attending concerts and haunting music stores for jazz albums.

"I also have a deep commitment to the community," he points out. "I believe very much in giving back, and over the years I've worked with Volunteer Vancouver, the United Way, and the Canadian Club among many other organizations."

BY DEBORAH FOLKA, AAA, APR

Copyright Institute of Chartered Accountants of British Columbia Jan 2001
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