By Ben Dummett
BlackBerry Ltd. said Monday it named Cisco Systems Inc. sales
veteran Carl Wiese to help drive its global sales efforts.
The Waterloo, Ontario, company, which is betting on
device-management software and phones aimed at niche business and
government customer markets to boost growth, named Mr. Wiese
president, global sales.
He takes over from John Sims, who has left the company.
A spokeswoman from BlackBerry declined to comment on Mr. Sims's
sudden departure.
The management change underscores the challenges the company
faces in reigniting sales growth after months of cost-cutting.
BlackBerry has struggled to meet revenue expectations. In its
latest quarter, revenue tumbled 32%, despite reporting a slightly
stronger profit.
BlackBerry has previously tried to reignite sales through
management changes. In December 2014, the company named Mr. Sims as
head of global sales in an earlier bid to bolster revenue. Mr.
Sims, who first joined the company at the end of 2013 as head of
enterprise, was handpicked by BlackBerry Chief Executive John Chen
to help him spearhead a turnaround of the company. He took over
from Eric Johnson, who now oversees sales to corporate and
government customers.
BlackBerry has set a target of $500 million in management-device
software and security services sales for fiscal 2016, and was
targeting another $100 million from BBM messaging services.
However, in its latest quarterly filing, it indicated it no longer
expects to reach that BBM revenue target this fiscal year due to
lower-than-expected growth. It didn't provide an updated BBM
revenue guidance.
Mr. Wiese, who has spent 10 years in senior leadership positions
at Cisco, was most recently senior vice president of the company's
global collaboration business.
The new executive wasn't available for interviews, the
BlackBerry spokeswoman said.
Judy McKinnon contributed to this article.
Write to Ben Dummett at ben.dummett@wsj.com
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