Step into the ring: Mirko Bibic has a plan to fix Canadian telecom

BCE CEO Mirko Bibic.anthony gebrehiwot/The Globe and Mail It's a strange quirk of history that more than a few CEOs took the reins of their companies in the winter of 2020, just before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of them managed their way through the crisis. BCE Inc.'s Mirko Bibic went a step further. A rising force at the company since taking over its regulatory brief in 2004, he saw the pandemic as an opportunity. Having helped his predecessor, George Cope, plan the company's shift to fibre-optic transmission, he accelerated it, launching an unprecedented capital-spending program. By the…