In less than a month at the helm, John Chen, the third person to lead Blackberry has made his first significant move as he has fired Kristian Tear, Chief Operating Officer and Frank Boulben, Chief Marketing Officer. Related to these moves, Brian Bidulka, Blackberry’s Chief Financial Officer will also be leaving, but will remain as a “special advisor” to the CEO for the next few months, to be replaced by James Yersh, Controller. Former Dean of University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, Roger Martin will also be leaving Blackberry’s Board of Directors.
Chen added in a press release: “BlackBerry has a strong cash position and continues, by a significant margin, to be the top provider of trusted and secure mobile device management solutions to enterprise customers around the world. Building on this core strength, and in conjunction with these management changes, I will continue to align my senior management team and organizational structure, and refine the Company’s strategy to ensure we deliver the best devices, mobile security and device management through BES 10, provide multi-platform messaging solutions with BBM, and expand adoption of QNX embedded systems.”
With Thorsten Heins let go from the company a few weeks ago it was only a matter of time before Tear and Boulben who were his top lieutenants were let go as well. Could this be the beginning of a rise for Blackberry?
