Rogers has replaced its chief technology officer, after the telecom’s devastating nationwide outage earlier this month, reports The Globe and Mail.
The company confirmed the shuffle in a statement saying, “Rogers can confirm Jorge Fernandes will be stepping step down from his role as Chief Technology and Information Officer. Effective immediately, Ron McKenzie becomes Chief Technology and Information Officer.”
Fernandes joined Rogers four years ago after previously working as CTO at Vodafone UK. Under his watch, Rogers saw a similar nationwide outage in April 2021. Fast forward to July 2022 and a similar nationwide outage also occurred, shutting down the entire INTERAC network, 9-1-1 services, plus phone and internet for consumers and businesses, affecting 12 million Rogers customers.
Both outages were caused by updates, and the 2021 incident was blamed on partner Ericsson. This month’s outage was blamed on a maintenance update and after a Rogers executive gave an impromptu interview with CBC News, it did not provide any confidence about when services would be restored.
McKenzie was formerly the president of Rogers for Business. The longtime telecom executive joined Rogers three years ago from Shaw. The Rogers website was updated last night to reflect McKenzie’s new role at the company.
The Rogers outage has resulted in a House of Commons industry committee to investigate the matter, while the CRTC has also demanded answers from the telco over the shutdown. Canada’s industry minister has ordered Rogers, Telus and Bell to come up with a network safety plan within 60 days, aimed at preventing a similar nationwide outage in the future.
