Executive Education partners to help advance Black senior managers at Rogers

Ted Rogers Executive and Corporate Education is helping Rogers Communications Inc. work towards their goal of diversifying their executive team.

Following two months of interviews and meetings with executive team members at the telecommunications company this summer, the Ted Rogers Executive Education team developed content and curriculum to help satisfy their Black North Initiative (external link)  commitments, explained Frank Miller, director of executive and corporate education. The Black North Initiative, founded by a Bay Street financier in 2020, encourages companies to commit to targets to raise the number of Black employees, including at least 3.5 per cent of board and executive roles occupied by Black people by 2025.

 The Elevate Black Leadership & Sponsorship program helped develop Black senior managers to achieve VP+ level roles for Rogers Communications. To help create the Elevate program, Rogers HR business partners arranged for the school’s instructors to meet executives from Rogers.

“It was literally a privilege to meet so many of the executives who made time for us and provided valuable insights into their business,” Miller said.  “Many of these contributing executives attended the program to begin each of the days.”

Starting in September, six instructors delivered five topics over 5.5 days, to help build Rogers’ employees financial acumen and knowledge of key business metrics. Modules included financial analysis, technology infrastructure, customer market, change management and executive communications. 

Eighteen senior manager/director level employees from all aspects of Rogers Communications attended. 

The first class was two days on financial analysis led by Dr. Daniel Tut and Instructor Adam Prokop, focusing on the financial performance of their business. Then, Dr. Catherine Middleton led a module on technology infrastructure. Following that, Dr. Murtaza Haider led a module on the customer market focused on metrics and data-driven insights. The fourth module, led by Miller, focused on change management. The final module, led by Christine Felgueiras, focused on executive communication.

The Elevate Black Leadership & Sponsorship program, tailored to the needs of Rogers Communications, will be the foundation for other training and initiatives in the company. 

Miller says the Elevate program speaks to the work undertaken in the equity, diversity, inclusion and accessibility space within the Ted Rogers School and how Executive Education is adding value to that.  “We were fortunate to have Dean’s Advisory Council members Lori-Ann Beausoleil and Al Ramsay along with MBA Advisory member Akil Bishop speak at the program kickoff on the topic of being a Black executive,” he explained.

“It's an indicator of the things that we could do - to make the curriculum so specific in terms of the examples and exercises that the participants went through over the five and a half days related to their business, kept them in the game.”