UPDATED 06:08 EST / JANUARY 15 2014

BlackBerry CEO brings in yet another former colleague to replicate Sybase turnaround

BlackBerry chief executive John Chen, credited with saving Sybase from its death spiral, is putting his old team back together in a bid to beat the odds once again and restore the struggling phone maker to its former glory.

The leadership reshuffle kicked off in December with the appointment of John Sims, the former head of SAP’s Mobile Services business, as the president of BlackBerry Global Enterprise Services. The division is the linchpin in Chen’s newly disclosed plan to transition the struggling phone maker away from the consumer market and refocus on corporate customers. Former SAP business development chief James Mackey was brought on board the week after to help implement this strategy, the first phase of which will involve cutting back on R&D and reviving the QWERTY keyboard.

The third member of Chen’s taskforce is Mark Wilson, who led field marketing for Sybase and went on to spearhead Avaya’s transformation into a service provider as CMO. The fourth and latest addition is Eric Johnson, who was appointed as BlackBerry’s president of global sales this week.

“I am pleased to round out BlackBerry’s new executive leadership team with another outstanding addition today. I have worked with Eric extensively and have tremendous respect for his sales expertise and customer centric approach to business,” Chen said in a statement. “The experience that the majority of the new leadership team has in working together previously will drive change within the organization at a faster pace. I look forward to demonstrating these changes to the market.”

Johnson is joining BlackBerry after a stint as general manager of Global Database and Technology at SAP, where he previously led platform and analytics sales for North America. Before that, he directed U.S. and EMEA operations at Sybase.


A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE:

Support our mission to keep content open and free by engaging with theCUBE community. Join theCUBE’s Alumni Trust Network, where technology leaders connect, share intelligence and create opportunities.

  • 15M+ viewers of theCUBE videos, powering conversations across AI, cloud, cybersecurity and more
  • 11.4k+ theCUBE alumni — Connect with more than 11,400 tech and business leaders shaping the future through a unique trusted-based network.
About SiliconANGLE Media
SiliconANGLE Media is a recognized leader in digital media innovation, uniting breakthrough technology, strategic insights and real-time audience engagement. As the parent company of SiliconANGLE, theCUBE Network, theCUBE Research, CUBE365, theCUBE AI and theCUBE SuperStudios — with flagship locations in Silicon Valley and the New York Stock Exchange — SiliconANGLE Media operates at the intersection of media, technology and AI.

Founded by tech visionaries John Furrier and Dave Vellante, SiliconANGLE Media has built a dynamic ecosystem of industry-leading digital media brands that reach 15+ million elite tech professionals. Our new proprietary theCUBE AI Video Cloud is breaking ground in audience interaction, leveraging theCUBEai.com neural network to help technology companies make data-driven decisions and stay at the forefront of industry conversations.