Who do you call to clean up a mess like BCE? A man called Cope

By Simon AveryFrom Friday's Globe and Mail

George Cope inherited a company that was years behind its competitors,smarting from an aborted buyout attempt and developing a reputationfor dismal customer service. If there was ever a time when steering Bellwas the easiest game in town, it's not now

A giant of a student dominates the centre of the court, his hand momentarily cupped overthe ball at his hip as he reads the blurredmovements of other players.Then George Cope makes his move: asideways pass to his guard that promptly leadsto another two points on the board for theRebels.In the stands at Port Perry High School, twodads, Lang Cope and David Simmonds, cheertheir sons' combination, then turn back tosmall-business talk. Their firms are rooted in amiddle-Ontario town of just 3,500 souls. Yet inless than two decades, two of Simmonds' littlebusinesses in the area will turn into keystonesof Canada's fast-changing phone business.And the man that will make it all happen isheading down the court again. Another friend on the squad, besides Gord Simmonds, isWade Oosterman, a foot shorter and a year older than Cope. He has no idea of the journey Cope will take him on, through three companies and far over the millennialhorizon: Cope, the star basketball centre, will apply the skills he learns from the twoentrepreneurs in the bleachers and, working alongside Simmonds and Oosterman, scoredeals that earn him a reputation as Canada's wireless whiz kid, and one of the telecomindustry's most astute leaders.For the moment, however, the school's 1979 athlete of the year and student councilpresident is still growing into his 6-foot-7-inch frame. He has already thought aboutstarting his own business as soon as he's out of school, but he's also being scouted byseveral university basketball coaches."My entire career comes back to basketball." George Cope

Young Cope is a conscientious worker who drills on the court and wants to understandthe strategy and tactics of the game. Unlike most kids, he wants the coach to teach himthe whole court. Understanding all the positions gives his own role clarity."There are some students that stick in your mind 30 years on," says Paul Arculus, theboys' assistant coach and English teacher. "Cope's group was one of those waves. Theywere good kids, intellectually and emotionally strong, but not brilliant."Arculus remembers Cope as an excellent player and natural leader: He raised money tobuy a Universal Gym, was instrumental in having bleachers installed in the gym forbasketball spectators, and rebranded the team (the Redmen became the Rebels). Theyoung Cope never won an academic prize, it's true; he had "an average vocabulary, withthe words he needed," Arculus says. But crucially, he knew how to share the spotlightwith his teammates.And to hear George Cope tell it, it was a key lesson. "My entire career," he says, "comesback to basketball." Throughout that journey, Cope has also applied an early lesson fromhis dad, who knew from running gas stations and rust-proofing shops that "the only costin life is time."That would explain the man's focus. In his first 20 months as CEO, Cope has got his armsaround the beast that is BCE Inc., the classic land-line phone company threatened by newtechnology, the giant that was forever shooting itself in its foot, until a frustratedshareholder tried to take it private-and that effort turned into a BCE fiasco too. (BCEowns 15% of CTVGlobemedia, parent of The Globe and Mail.)Summoned to head the company by that frustrated shareholder-Ontario Teachers' PensionPlan-the 48-year-old Cope has breathed new vitality into Bell, bringing clarity and arazor-sharp business instinct that colleagues and competitors marvel at. He has eliminated6,000 jobs, partnered with a chief rival repeatedly to save hundreds of millions of dollars,boosted BCE's stock dividend three times, and begun to deliver on a financial strategy.BCE's revenue edged up just 0.4% in 2009, but profit nearly doubled, and Cope's profitforecast for this year exceeded Bay Street's expectations.The job is far from complete, he admits. "Nothing ever goes as fast as you want it to go,"he says. "There is some momentum in the company, for sure. I think we've done morethan the market necessarily knows yet."

In person, Cope is not intimidating.

He slides down in his chair, hunches forward,almost humbled by his own size. When a call from his wife on his cellphone interrupts ameeting, he gets up to leave his own office, without even thinking to ask his guest to stepoutside.Indeed, there was never any "over-aggressiveness" in him, says his old coach. He hadgood friends, he was "a happy lad," both mature and respectful.

In the 1970s and 80s, Port Perry was a bedroom community, home to workers from thenearby Pickering nuclear plant and the General Motors factory in Oshawa. Parents wereclosely involved with the high school. Flipping through yearbooks, Arculus can rhymeoff the successful careers of many former students. Tye Burt, a few years ahead of Cope,became CEO of Kinross Gold. Cope's teammate George Burnett became head coach of the Edmonton Oilers. Then, of course, there was Cope's telecom crew.Cope's father, Lang, had a short stint in the CFL with the Toronto Argonauts. But therewasn't much money in it in 1951, even if you could punt 70 yards, so he went intobusiness. Cope's mother, Daisy, ran her own fabric store in Port Perry. Their sonfollowed suit: With his high-school buddy and teammate Oosterman, he began makingmoney in the summer painting houses and digging basements.The two young men had made a pact to start a full-time business after high school. Butinstead they headed off to the University of Western Ontario. Oosterman studiedeconomics and later did an MBA. Cope took his business training more quickly, optingfor the undergraduate business degree. Initially lacking the marks necessary to get intothe business school, he quit the varsity basketball team, even though the coach warnedhim he would never get back on. Cope landed a spot at the business school and, in histhird year, a position on the team.By the time he graduated, weak joints had sidelined Cope as a serious basketball player.It was straight on to business: a job in commercial lending at a suburban Toronto branchof Continental Bank. In the occasional lectures he gives to business students today, Copelikes to say that he took the job because he wanted to learn how an entrepreneur could getmoney from a bank. "The lesson," he says, "is you don't."Even though he was in Toronto, Cope came back into the Simmonds' circle via a men'sbasketball league. His teammate Gord Simmonds and his older brother Bob wereworking at their father's firm, Lenbrook, an electronics distributor. Cope was quicklyrecruited into the family business. At the time, Lenbrook ran two communicationscompanies that, 25 tumultuous years later, seem almost as far in the rear-view mirror asAlexander Graham Bell's call to Mr. Watson. Brooktel Communications Inc. sold first-generation cellphones for Bell and loaded them onto the carrier's nascent wirelessnetwork. Clearnet Communications sold two-way radio technology.At 24, Cope was ready to take on the world. But he knew enough to look around andlearn. In David Simmonds, in his mid-50s at the time, he saw a man bred for smallbusiness, someone who fostered good relations with everyone in his sphere, fromsuppliers to competitors. "David had an incredible understanding of how you pulled thedifferent levers of marketing, be it the distribution side, the price side or the productside," Cope recalls. "It was a great education for a young guy on how you could, with avery clear strategy, differentiate in the marketplace by focusing on your distribution andproduct."