Wordfest Presents Alexandra Posadzki

Wordfest Presents Alexandra Posadzki

The Rogers v. Rogers court case was a family saga rivaling the plot of the HBO series Succession. Take a deep dive into the fight for the media giant when Wordfest presents award-winning journalist Alexandra Posadzki and her book Rogers v. Rogers: The Battle for Control of Canada’s Telecom Empire. The Feb. 27 conversation will be hosted by Paul Haavardsrud, host of CBC's Cost of Living, and includes an audience Q & A and book signing. Thank you to Owl’s Nest Books, who will be on site with copies of the book, which reveals behind-the-scenes details about the acquisition of Calgary-based Shaw Communications.

We are grateful to Penguin Random House Canada for making it possible for Wordfest to connect you with Alexandra Posadzki.

About Rogers v. Rogers: The Battle for Control of Canada’s Telecom Empire

A riveting, deeply reported account that takes us inside the dramatic battle for control of Canada’s largest wireless carrier, and paints a broader picture of the cutthroat telecom industry, the labyrinth of regulatory and political systems that govern it, and the high-stakes corporate games played by the Canadian establishment.

Alexandra Posadzki’s ground-breaking coverage in the Globe and Mail exposed one of the most spectacular boardroom and family dramas in Canadian corporate history—one that has pitted the company’s extraordinarily powerful chairman and controlling shareholder, Edward Rogers, against not only his own management team but also the wishes of his mother and two of his sisters. Hanging in the balance is no less than the pending $20 billion acquisition of Shaw Communications, a historic deal that promises to transform Rogers into the truly national telecom empire that its late founder, Ted Rogers, always envisioned.

Based on deeply sourced, investigative reporting of the iconic $30 billion publicly traded telecom and media giant, Posadzki takes us inside a company that touches the lives of millions of Canadians, challenging what we thought we knew about corporate governance and who really holds the power. Rogers v. Rogers is also a story of family legacy and succession, of an old guard pushing back at the new guard, and of a company struggling to find its footing in the wake of its legendary founder’s death. At the heart of it all is a dispute between warring factions of the family over how they each interpret the desires of the late patriarch and the very identity of the company that bears their name.

About Alexandra Posadzki

Alexandra Posadzki is a business reporter with the Globe and Mail. Her coverage of the country’s telecommunications industry won several Canada Best in Business Awards from the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing. She was featured in a 2022 Netflix documentary called Trust No One: The Hunt for the Crypto King for her contributions to the Globe’s industry-leading coverage of a massive cryptocurrency Ponzi scheme. Posadzki lives in Toronto and is a graduate of Toronto Metropolitan University’s Master of Journalism program.

About Host Paul Haavardsrud

Paul Haavardsrud is the host of the Cost of Living on CBC Radio One. Before radio, he started his career as a business journalist at Dow Jones News before moving to newspapers. He grew up in the windiest part of southern Alberta and in Grade 11 hit the game-winning three in the Crescent Heights Cowboys Invitational basketball tournament. No big deal. He doesn’t talk much about it unless it comes up organically in conversation.