I think that when you have multiple busi-
nesses—which I'm fortunate to have today—
it's all about setting up a system and a way
to standardize and look at the business.
Oftentimes, I'll start with questions like:
What problem are we trying to solve for this
business? What are our customers looking
for? For each line of the business, what are
our competitors doing in them and how are
we better than them? How are we the same
and where are we behind? When you look
at the team, what are the talent levels we
have and do we have the right people in the
right roles? When you work back from the
results you want to drive, is the account-
ability clear on what needs to be done and
by whom? And are those people ready and
prepared to achieve those results? Having
that standardized approach that you can
use across all the different businesses as a
way to look at [employees'] performance
is how I've been able to adapt to having
multiple businesses.
Is there one sector or
department of the company
that you're most drawn to?
And have your interests
changed at all?
Just yesterday, it was my 26th
anniversary of being at Telus.
Time has flown by. I've been
on the core telecommunica-
tions side for most of that
time. But in the last couple of
years I have taken on health
and agriculture. I would say
I'm drawn to those because
of the social purpose ele-
ments of those two busi-
Maybe, if you have decent lung
capacity, you'd be able to say Navin
Arora's entire title in one breath. The
executive VP of Telus and president
of its business solutions, partner
solutions and health, agriculture and
consumer goods divisions has been
with the telecom for over
25 years. We talked about
how he handles multiple
businesses and departments
and how he sees B.C.'s
largest company continuing
to fend off the competition.
by Nathan Caddell
You have so many
different titles. How
do you balance all
of them and move,
essentially, from
industry to industry
in one role?
