The new president and CEO of TBayTel says the focus of the company's future is wireless technology.
Dan Topatigh was announced as the new head of the city's telecommunications company Tuesday morning after a year-long search to fill the shoes of former CEO Don Campbell.
Topatigh has served as TBayTel's chief financial officer since 2007 and has held the interim president and CEO position for the last nine months.
The husband and father is excited about his new position and said he looks forward to expanding the quality and footprint of the company's wireless network in both Thunder Bay and the region.
"We continue to invest in those areas of our strategic plan that will expect to be the greatest focus for our customers and that is wireless undoubtedly and it is broadband," he said, adding he also sees more room to grow their digital TV service.
Topatigh also acknowledged the challenges that come in an industry as competitive as telecommunications, saying TBayTel competes daily with some of the largest players in Canada.
"We certainly hold our own. We are the market leader in all of our legacy products and we're quite proud of that," he said.
"We're privileged to be able to provide those services to the customers," he said.
While challenges are constantly changing in the industry, Topatigh said the company relies on its senior leadership team and TBayTel's 430 dedicated employees.
Topatigh has a commerce degree from Lakehead University and a chartered public accountant designation with the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Ontario.
He has experience in senior management with both Bowater and Abitibi Consolidated's Thunder Bay mills.
TBayTel's board of directors hired an international executive recruitment firm once Campbell announced his retirement and board chair Michael Power said it was an unanimous decision to hire Topatigh for the job.
TBayTel looked at leadership, competencies, consumer focus and they wanted a CEO with the ability to see the benefits of marketing, sales and customer needs in residential and business space.
They also needed to understand the technology.
"Ultimately we wanted someone who either had an established knowledge of our local and regional market and the needs of our consumers or someone who could demonstrate by way of experience that they could come into this market and understand this is not downtown Toronto or downtown Vancouver or Manhattan and could immediately come to appreciate the needs of our business and residential customers," said Power.
The company wanted someone with a business and strategic partnership background who could work with CEOs in the Canadian telecommunications market and internationally.
"Mr. Topatigh's been doing that with great success since 2007 and he was the right choice for the job," said Power.
