Anthony Lacavera

Anthony Lacavera is a Canadian businessman, venture capitalist, television host, and philanthropist. He is founder, chairman, and former CEO of Globalive, a Toronto-based telecommunications and investment company. He has also founded several other companies including Wind Mobile, a wireless service provider which was sold to Shaw Communications in 2016 for $1.6 billion.

He also started a media company, Globalive Media, which produces the television series Beyond Innovation that airs on Bloomberg TV globally. He has produced Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 2008 which received Laurence Olivier Award for Best Revival in 2010. He has also produced A Streetcar Named Desire for Broadway.

Early life and education

Lacavera was born in 1974 in Welland, Ontario. His father was a lawyer and a high school teacher.[2] His sister Catherine is also a businesswoman and was among the list of Fortune's 40 Under 40 in 2013.[3]

He went to Notre Dame College School in Welland,[4] and Neuchâtel Junior College in Neuchâtel, Switzerland until 1993.[5][6] He went to University of Toronto and joined Applied Science and Engineering school and graduated in computer engineering in 1997.[7] In 2012, he has also received an honorary diploma in "Business and Entrepreneurship" from the Niagara College.[8]

He played Junior "B" ice hockey leagues in Welland and Thorold.[4]

Career

After graduation, Lacavera founded Globalive in 1998 with a $25,000 small business loan from the Royal Bank of Canada. Globalive is a telecommunications and investment company based in Toronto, Ontario.[2]

The first operating company was Canopco, a communication company in the hospitality industry, supplying hotels and hospitals with a variety of services.[9] In 1999, he founded InterClear, a billing and collection service and then in 2000, Assemble Conferencing. These are three companies were merged into each other and started calling Globalive Communications, which was later converted into Globalive.[10]

In 2001, he co-founded Enunciate Conferencing with two partners, which was sold to Premiere Global Services for USD $28.3 million in 2006.[10][2] In 2003, he founded OneConnect Services through his Globalive, to provide communications technologies to small and medium sized businesses.[11]

Lacavera through his Globalive acquired Yak Communications for all-cash USD $67.7 million in 2006, a communications company founded in 1991 by Charles Zwebner.[12][13]

In 2008, Globalive founded WIND Mobile, a wireless telecommunications provider, and Lacavera became the Founder CEO of the company.[14] He also founded an investment firm, Globalive Capital Inc.[15] In 2015, Lacavera stepped down as a CEO of Globalive Capital and appointed its previously chief financial officer, Brice Scheschuk as the new CEO.[16]

He also started an augmented reality solutions company, a joint venture between Globalive and Gibraltar Ventures's XMG Studios, called Globalive XMG.[17] Globalive XMG was later sold to the Los Angeles-based Civic Resource Group's CivicConnect.[18]

Anthony closed a deal of $1.6 billion to sell WIND Mobile to Shaw Communications in March 2016, which Shaw renamed it to Freedom Mobile.[19][20] The same year in September, Lacavera also sold his other three companies including the Yak Communications to Distributel, OneConnect Services and Canopco to Accelerated Connections Inc (ACI).[21]

In March 2022, Lacavera showed an interest to reacquire Freedom/Wind from Shaw in a pending merger with Rogers Communications for C$3.75 billion to satisfy regulatory concerns.[22][23] After an unresponsive behavior from Rogers, Lacavera's Globalive directly went to Shaw making the same offer to buy the company.[24]

Philanthropy

In 2012, Lacavera started "Lacavera Prize" in partnership with The Entrepreneurship Hatchery at the University of Toronto, to help university students looking to start an entrepreneurial venture.[30][31] Kepler Communications is one of successful telecommunications companies which won the prize and founded in 2015 by the University's four graduate students.[32]

He is director and co-chair of NEXT Canada, a non-profit organization.[33] He is also a founding partner of the Creative Destruction Lab, a nonprofit organization,[34] with five locations at different educational institutes in Canada and the United States.[35]

Books

• How We Can Win: And What Happens to Us and Our Country If We Don't (Penguin Random House Canada, 2017)[36] – ISBN 073527259X

Awards and honors

• Anthony Lacavera was among the Canada's Top 40 Under 40 list in 2005.[37]
• He was named CEO of the Year in Canada in 2010 by The Globe and Mail.[38]
• He was named an Honorary Fellow of St. Michael’s College at the University of Toronto in 2012.[39]
• He received an honorary diploma in "Business and Entrepreneurship" from the Niagara College.[8]
• He received Order of the Star of Italian Solidarity (Commander) from the Government of Italy in 2012.[40]
• He was named to the University of Toronto's Engineering Hall of Distinction in 2013.[39]