In November 2013, Global News - Jamie Sturgeon - praised former BlackBerry CEO John Chen as a thought-to-be saviour of BlackBerry, with his headline "New BlackBerry CEO John Chen has connections, know-how".
Thorsten Heins is out at BlackBerry, leaving in his wake a failed plan to restore the company’s position in its smartphone market and now, a failed sale to salvage the business.
In his place comes John Chen, an external hire who it appears has been hastily appointed as executive chairman of Waterloo-based BlackBerry’s board or directors as well its interim chief executive.
So who is the new head at BlackBerry, still one of Canada’s most recognizable brands and companies?
Chen, who was born in Hong Kong and educated as an engineer in the United States, looks uniquely suited for the job from several angles.
The 57-year-old holds a track record of turning around a large tech firm through the development of innovative mobile technologies. He also possesses significant corporate and governmental connections, both in the United States and Asia — relationships that could be more than useful in any turnaround plan that relies on BlackBerry refocusing on its core user base.
BlackBerry’s new chief served on former U.S. President George W. Bush’s export council, and has been named by Forbes magazine as one of the “Top 25” Chinese-Americans in business.
In 1998, the executive took the helm at U.S. database and networking firm Sybase, which had been bleeding losses for years before Chen was appointed to the top job. Under his watch, Sybase regained business lost to rivals like Oracle, IBM and Microsoft.
The Hong Kong expat also shifted the company’s focus to wireless technologies, a move that would catalyze Sybase’s revival and ultimately pave the way for its sale to German software giant SAP for $5.8 billion three years ago.
In a statement released shortly after his appointment, Chen sounded confident he could reenact a similar narrative at BlackBerry, though he stressed caution. “BlackBerry is an iconic brand with enormous potential – but it’s going to take time, discipline and tough decisions to reclaim our success,” Chen said.
Chen’s deep corporate ties will almost certainly be looked to by BlackBerry as it attempts to stabilize and secure loyalty from its millions of core business and government customers and win new business with them, predicted Sturgeon.
He has been a board member at U.S bank Wells Fargo as well as at Walt Disney Co.
He remained at SAP until joining private equity firm Silver Lake, where he evaluated “potential new investments and drove operational improvements” at businesses the fund invested in, a Businessweek bio reads.
One file he is reported to have worked closely on is the privatization of embattled computer maker Dell Inc. in 2013, — raising questions about potential partnerships that might occur with his new company.
Chen joins a company that’s in arguably far worse shape than anything he’s encountered, experts say, with deep jobs cuts across key businesses being implementing now amid collapsing sales for BlackBerry’s primary product lines.
“This is John’s background. They’re getting someone in with a history of restructuring and to keep the business churning,” John Pliniussen, business and marketing professor at Queen’s University said.
Pliniussen believes that despite BlackBerry’s inability to attract a buyer ahead of a deadline that expired in 2013, BlackBerry will ultimately find several in the form of a breakup.
“I believe the company will be sold, there will be divestments,” the academic said, adding that Chen’s main responsibility is to “keep the doors open for other possible bids.”
Chen very ackwardely said about his departure at BlackBerry :
Heins spent 23 years working at Siemens prior to joining BlackBerry in 2007 He served in several positions related to wireless technology including the chief technology officer of Siemens' communications division and several general management roles in hardware and software. He rose through the ranks starting as senior vice president of BlackBerry's handheld unit; chief operating officer for product engineering, and finally chief operating officer for product and sales in July 2011 before being appointed BlackBerry President & CEO in January 2012, replacing co-founders Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis.
During his time as CEO, the company continued to struggle in a rapidly changing market. Heins was responsible for BlackBerry's development of the BlackBerry 10 line of consumer and enterprise devices. In 2012, Heins was named Cantech Letter's 2012 TSX Executive of the Year and ranked a year later as third on a list of the worst CEOs of 2013. He was handed a $13.8 million severance for departing BlackBerry. Chen was recruited by Fairfax's Prem Watsa who claimed that "Thorsten did a very good job given the hand that he was dealt, but resigned because you can’t have two people being in charge. He said to me, ‘It’s very appropriate for me to resign. I like John Chen, but I’m a CEO and there is one person in charge.’"
After leaving BlackBerry in 2013, Heins went on to become the chairman and CEO of Powermat Technologies. During Heins' tenure Powermat secured an agreement from Samsung to incorporate its wireless charging technology into future smartphones.
Heins found himself in the middle of a battle between two factions on Powermat's board. Since October 2015, he and some board members were the target of a lawsuit by other Powermat board members led by founder Ran Poliakane for allegedly running the company without an approved budget.
Investors like Goldman Sachs and Hudson Clean Energy backed Heins. Heins and other board members, constituting a majority of the directors, countersued. Heins resigned from Powermat in July 2016. Heins' resignation helped settle the lawsuits just mentioned and allowed for new investment from several important shareholders. Heins had earlier threatened to leave due to what he called a hostile work environment.
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Both Heins and Chen appointments did not served BlackBerry well, no question about that.
When you have a distressed company such as BlackBerry, with 584 million shares outstanding and a whacky share price in the $4 range, something is definitely going wrong with management, nevertheless, pocketing galore of money by leaving shareholders in a dry run. Beside, BB is a highly manipulated stock.
The company will one day unfold a few dollars higher.