BlackBerry CEO brings in yet another former colleague to replicate Sybase turnaround
BlackBerry chief executive John Chen, credited with saving Sybase from its death spiral, is putting his old team back together in a bid to beat the odds once again and restore the struggling phone maker to its former glory.
The leadership reshuffle kicked off in December with the appointment of John Sims, the former head of SAP’s Mobile Services business, as the president of BlackBerry Global Enterprise Services. The division is the linchpin in Chen’s newly disclosed plan to transition the struggling phone maker away from the consumer market and refocus on corporate customers. Former SAP business development chief James Mackey was brought on board the week after to help implement this strategy, the first phase of which will involve cutting back on R&D and reviving the QWERTY keyboard.
The third member of Chen’s taskforce is Mark Wilson, who led field marketing for Sybase and went on to spearhead Avaya’s transformation into a service provider as CMO. The fourth and latest addition is Eric Johnson, who was appointed as BlackBerry’s president of global sales this week.
“I am pleased to round out BlackBerry’s new executive leadership team with another outstanding addition today. I have worked with Eric extensively and have tremendous respect for his sales expertise and customer centric approach to business,” Chen said in a statement. “The experience that the majority of the new leadership team has in working together previously will drive change within the organization at a faster pace. I look forward to demonstrating these changes to the market.”
Johnson is joining BlackBerry after a stint as general manager of Global Database and Technology at SAP, where he previously led platform and analytics sales for North America. Before that, he directed U.S. and EMEA operations at Sybase.
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