Rogers replaces chief technology officer two weeks after nationwide outage due to ‘coding error’ that left millions without service

Rogers is replacing its chief technology and information officer, just two weeks after the telecommunications giant experienced a nationwide shutdown that left millions of customers without phone, internet and TV service.Canada’s largest cellphone provider confirmed to the Star on Thursday morning that Ron McKenzie is taking over for Jorge Fernandes “effective immediately.”McKenzie, a veteran telecom executive, will now be in charge of the company’s wireless networks and IT systems that serve more than 11 million Canadians. He steps into the role as Rogers faces significant fallout from the nationwide outage — its second major service disruption in just over a year — that has prompted a government review and thrown a wrench into the company’s planned multibillion-dollar takeover of Shaw Communications Inc.McKenzie joined Rogers three years ago, and was responsible for service and technical support for Rogers’s wireless and wireline services. In June 2021, he was appointed president of Rogers for Business, where he oversaw operations for the company’s public sector business clients. Prior to joining Rogers, McKenzie served for 10 years in senior leadership at Shaw Communications, including as its chief operating officer. Fernandes joined Rogers in 2018 after 15 years at British multinational telecommunications company Vodafone.The shakeup comes as Rogers continues to face tumultuous backfire following its July 8 service blackout. In an interview on BNN Bloomberg on July 11, Rogers president and chief executive officer, Tony Staffieri, said the outage was caused by a coding error. “It was a coding error as part of a maintenance upgrade that we did early Friday morning (July 8) that caused a data overload,” he said. “And that caused a second error, which is our routers to overload with all the data and then caused our core gateway to shut down.”Two days later, in an open letter to customers published July 13, Staffieri wrote: “You have my personal commitment that Rogers will make every change and investment needed to help ensure that it will not happen again.”Rogers has until Friday to provide Canada’s telecommunications regulatory agency, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), with a comprehensive explanation of what caused the outage. “The CRTC is requesting a detailed account from Rogers as to ‘why’ and ‘how’ this happened, as well as what measures Rogers is putting in place to prevent future outages,” said CRTC chief executive officer Ian Scott in a statement issued July 12. Scott said this is the first step the regulatory body is taking to improve network resiliency. “Events of this magnitude paralyzing portions of our country’s economy and jeopardizing the safety of Canadians are simply unacceptable,” he said. With files by Christine DobbyJoshua Chong is a Toronto-based staff reporter for the Star. Reach Joshua via email: jchong@torstar.ca