Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, co-founders of handset maker RIM, are leaving their roles as co-CEOs and co-chairmen of the company.
The board has promoted COO Thorsten Heins as the new CEO and president, while a director at the company, Barbara…
Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis, co-founders of handset maker RIM, are leaving their roles as co-CEOs and co-chairmen of the company.
The board has promoted COO Thorsten Heins as the new CEO and president, while a director at the company, Barbara Stymiest, has been named as the new independent board chair.
Lazaridis has become the company’s vice chair and chair of the board’s “Innovation Committee”. Balsillie will remain on the RIM board.
There has been growing speculation in recent months that RIM would be making leadership changes, after a year of disappointing results and investor disquiet.
In the RIM statement, Lazaridis said: “There comes a time in the growth of every successful company when the founders recognize the need to pass the baton to new leadership. Jim [Balsillie] and I went to the Board and told them that we thought that time was now.”
New CEO Heins expressed optimism about RIM’s future, arguing that the company has a “strong balance sheet with $1.5bn in cash at the end of the last quarter and negligible debt”.
RIM won’t be split up, new CEO says
Heins said that the handset maker would focus on “short-term and long term growth, strategic planning, a customer- and market-based product approach, and flawless execution”.
In a conference call with investors, Heins made clear that he has no intention to split up RIM.
He said that the company was strong because of its “integrated solution”, which includes network, devices and services.
“I want to build on that. I will not in any way split this up or separate this into different businesses,” he said.
Heins added that he would consider requests to license RIM’s upcoming Blackberry 10 platform to other companies.
Heins worked at Siemens before joining RIM as COO four years ago. The new chair, Barbara Stymiest, had been a member of the Royal Bank of Canada’s Group Executive, before joining RIM’s board in 2007.
RIM also said that John Richardson, formerly a lead director, would remain on its board. Prem Watsa, CEO of Fairfax Financial Holdings, has been named to the board, meaning that it now has 11 members.
RIM reported net income of US$265m in its Q3 results (released in December), down from US$911m in Q3 2010.
