This year has been a particularly tough one for BlackBerry. After the devices it released this year failed to turn its fortunes around, the company put up a for sale sign, but a buyout didn’t go through. Instead it has received a capital injection of $1 billion from various institutional investors, executive changes come as a part and parcel of that investment. Thorsten Heins was replaced as CEO by former Sybase CEO John S. Chen, the company counts on his turnaround expertise to turn its fortunes around as well. There have been shakeups in top level management as well, and according to new report by The Wall Street Journal, two more top executives are likely to leave the company in the near future.
While BlackBerry hasn’t officially confirmed it as yet, the report claims that executive vice president for global sales Rick Costanzo and vice president for strategic alliances Chris Wormald will be leaving the company by the end of this month. Both have been at BlackBerry for over a decade, with Constanzo joining back in 1999 and Wormald following him a year later. Late last month BlackBerry officially confirmed that its chief operating officer Kristian Tear and chief marketing officer Frank Boulben are departing. This forms much of the team that surrounded Heins during his stint as the once iconic manufacturer’s CEO. Chen probably wants to have his own hand-picked team around him, and given that the company hasn’t been able to flourish under these executives, it makes sense that Chen isn’t willing to bet on them any more.
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