
He has built networks, products and marketing engines at telecom scale. His quieter advantage is an executive habit anyone can borrow: listen closely, think alone, then translate technology into a problem someone actually needs solved.

Across beer, wireless, ride-hailing, retail and now TELUS, Kevin McLaughlin has kept returning to one practical question: what friction can the customer do without?
For 40 years UScellular chased signal into the parts of America the big carriers ignored. Then it did the math, sold the customers to T-Mobile, and turned itself into a tower company.
The magenta insurgent grew up, absorbed Sprint and built a 5G lead. Its harder assignment now is to become a broader broadband company without turning into the kind of carrier it taught customers to distrust.