BlackBerry Hires Cisco Executive to Lead Global Sales

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 [e-mail]

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