BlackBerry CEO John Chen has made a few changes in BlackBerry, replacing former Head of Sales Eric Johnson with John Sims, current President of Enterprise.
Eric Johnson will now overlook enterprise sales instead, deepening enterprise relationships. A BlackBerry representative confirmed to The Globe and Mail:
BlackBerry confirmed in an e-mail Wednesday that Eric Johnson, formerly president of global sales for BlackBerry, has been replaced by the company’s president of enterprise, John Sims. Mr. Johnson, hired 11 months ago, “will focus on driving enterprise sales, deepening our relationships with enterprise customers and ensuring” the company’s server software and portfolio of services “are meeting expectations” in a new role, a company spokesman said in an e-mail.
It’s easy to look at this as a blow to John Chen who hired Eric Johnson. Such is business and sometimes, the right fit at one place doesn’t mean it’s the right place at another. Johnson, then as senior vice-president of SAP’s global database and technology group worked with John Chen at SAP for 10 years. John Chen was hired as CEO for BlackBerry before he practically hired a handful of the SAP team to work under him at BlackBerry.
BlackBerry also confirmed to The Globe and Mail two new executive roles, Billy Ho, enterprise engineering team leader will now also be in charge of enterprise product management. Herman Li, will lead BBM engineering and product management. Li previously was the senior vice-president for software with BBM. These changes were announced internally to BlackBerry employees and will take effect at the end of the month.
Source: The Globe and Mail