Gerry Pond

Hall of Fame Inductee 1997

back to Hall of Fame

Gerry Pond is a visionary who has made a difference to NBTel, New Brunswick and many companies throughout the world. He has led the transformation of his company by applying information technology to improve productivity and customer service. In so doing he has made an international leader out of a small company with a customer base of only 750,000 people. He is the 1997 Information Innovator of the Year.

Pond is President and Chief Executive Officer of Bruncor Inc. and its prinC.I.P.A.l subsidiary, The New Brunswick Telephone Company Limited. Both companies have just had their best years ever, with revenue, profits and Bruncor's stock price hitting record highs. Pond is also Chairman of New North Media, a joint venture of Bruncor, Bell Canada and Nortel, which is marketing software for screen-based telephones in several Canadian provinces and internationally.

Pond was Vice-President of Planning and Marketing for NBTel in 1991 when he co-wrote and issued an internal document called "TeleSolutions 24" as a growth strategy in antiC.I.P.A.tion of looming competition in long-distance services. The principles in that document redefined NBTel's business based on providing what Pond called "electronic doors" to its customers.

Service hours for any kind of service, including installations, were extended to seven days a week, 24 hours a day, with automated self-service available for customers to define their own requirements. To NBTel's knowledge this level of service is unique among telecommunication companies in the world. Customers also have continual pay-per-use access to custom calling features such as teleconferencing. Every home and business in New Brunswick is provided with a voice mailbox as part of basic service.

NBTel's high service levels have generated customer loyalty to the extent that NBTel has the highest market share for long-distance services in any Canadian province, at 90 per cent, despite competition from 22 companies. Pond's devotion to customer service sets the example.

"If you really want your customers to believe that you are always open and anxious to do business with them, that they come first, you have to live that," he says. "I perhaps make a passion out of it. I take it sometimes to an extreme, I suppose. But I frequently call and work with customers on the weekends. I usually spend part of Christmas Day with my family and part with my other family, which is my employee group working that day." More than 100 companies from around the world have come to study NBTel's business methods ­ and, in some cases, to become customers.

Pond expects that NBTel's exports of software products and services will account for one-third of its revenues by the year 2000. Domestically, the company has attracted more than 40 call centres to New Brunswick since 1990, generating 6,000 jobs and adding $40 million to NBTel's revenue in 1996. Pond is now implementing a new strategy for the future based on the seamless integration of communication services via telephone, computer or television.

Pond was elected Chairman of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce effective September, 1997. Active in community work, he is a Governor of the University of New Brunswick and a member of the Atlantic Provinces Telecommunications Council.