By Gadjo Cardenas Sevilla
RIM’s longtime Co-CEO’s Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie have resigned their positions and have endorsed Thorsten Heins as the new CEO while Barbara Stymiest is chairwoman of RIM’s board.
The weekend shakeup comes after months of pressure from RIM’s board, stockholders and detractors who pushed for a top-down change of leadership at the Waterloo, ON based smartphone and tablet maker. RIM has had a tough year behind a series of missteps including but not limited to a lukewarm PlayBook tablet release, faltering stock prices and a poorly-handled week-long service outage that shook the faith of a number of users.
RIM’s stock lost around 75 per cent of its value as of 2011. The company, which is credited for having created the smartphone niche, was worth more than $70 billion a few years ago now has a market value of around $8 billion.
Leadership move likely first in a series of changes
RIM CEO Thorsten Heims
On the transition to CEO by Mr. Heins, Mr. Lazaridis said, “There comes a time in the growth of every successful company when the founders recognize the need to pass the baton to new leadership.”
“Jim and I went to the Board and told them that we thought that time was now. With BlackBerry 7 now out, PlayBook 2.0 shipping in February and BlackBerry 10 expected to ship later this year, the company is entering a new phase, and we felt it was time for a new leader to take it through that phase and beyond. Jim, the Board and I all agreed that leader should be Thorsten Heins.”
Heins previously served as Chief Operating Officer, Product Engineering, overseeing the BlackBerry smartphone portfolio world-wide.
Prior to joining RIM in 2007, Thorsten held several positions in the wireless arena including the Chief Technology Officer of Siemens’ Communications Division and several general management positions in Hardware and Software businesses.
“This is an amazing company with a passionate and loyal customer base, we are committed to this opportunity,” Heins said during an early morning conference call with the press this morning.
“We have an exceptional foundation to build upon with 75 million people using our services everyday and 55 million people embracing BlackBerry Messenger. RIM has undergone an incredible transformation. Like all companies that scale we hit a few bumps on the road. Mike and Jim are visionaries and they built a remarkable company,” Heins said in the conference call.
RIM’s change in leadership is the first step in rebuilding and many expect a number of changes to follow within RIM. They are now hunting for a Chief Marketing Officer to help push the right message and manage the company’s public side better. “I want this ASAP, this is an area we need to strengthen. This is bidirectional, we need to listen as well. We need to do a better job in the US,” Heins said about acquiring a new marketing head.
Barbara Stymiest, who formerly served as a member of Royal Bank of Canada’s Group Executive and has been a member of RIM’s Board since 2007, has been named the independent Board Chair.
Speaking on behalf of the Board, Ms. Stymiest said: “We believe that Thorsten is the right executive to succeed Mike and Jim. He has 27 years of telecommunications experience, including four years at RIM in senior management positions. As a Board, we have been impressed with his outstanding management skills, his leadership and his accomplishments within the company.”
Right time to pass the baton
Jim Balsillie remains a member of the Board. “I agree this is the right time to pass the baton to new leadership, and I have complete confidence in Thorsten, the management team and the company,” he said. “I remain a significant shareholder and a Director and, of course, they will have my full support.”
“I think this has been the hardest working year of my life,” Balsillie said in a recent interview with the Globe and Mail , adding that he had 24/7 responsibility in multiple time zones, and has been working 80- to 90-hour weeks.
Mr. Lazaridis said that he decided to move from Co-Chair to Vice Chair of the Board in order to return the public’s focus to what is most important: “the great company we have built, its iconic products, global brand and its talented employees.”
Lazaridis added, “‘I am so confident in RIM’s future that I intend to purchase an additional $50 million of the company’s shares.”
- More RIM coverage
