BlackBerry maker Research in Motion names new chief executive officer and board chair

Big, big news out of Water­loo (Ontario) tonight: Black­Ber­ry mak­er Research in Motion, one of Canada’s largest and most pres­ti­gious com­pa­nies, has announced that its two top exec­u­tives — who have joint­ly led the com­pa­ny as as co-chief exec­u­tive offi­cers and co-chair­men of the board for many years — are step­ping down from those posi­tions, effec­tive immediately.

Mike Lazaridis and Jim Bal­sil­lie, who are both fifty, said in a state­ment that they believed the time had come for fresh lead­er­ship at Research in Motion.

“There comes a time in the growth of every suc­cess­ful com­pa­ny when the founders rec­og­nize the need to pass the baton to new lead­er­ship,” Lazaridis said. “Jim and I went to the Board and told them that we thought that time was now. With Black­Ber­ry 7 now out, Play­Book 2.0 ship­ping in Feb­ru­ary and Black­Ber­ry 10 expect­ed to ship lat­er this year, the com­pa­ny is enter­ing a new phase, and we felt it was time for a new leader to take it through that phase and beyond. Jim, the Board and I all agreed that leader should be Thorsten Heins.”

Lazaridis and Bal­sil­lie stressed that they will both remain on RIM’s board. Lazaridis will serve as Vice Chair, along­side new Chair Bar­bara Stymi­est, who has been a direc­tor of the com­pa­ny for sev­er­al years. In addi­tion, he’ll head­ing up a new Inno­va­tion Com­mit­tee for the board, which is expand­ing to eleven mem­bers with the appoint­ment of Prem Wat­sa, CEO of Fair­fax Finan­cial Hold­ings.

Wat­sa, now one of RIM’s largest share­hold­ers, is wide­ly con­sid­ered to be a savvy and thought­ful investor; he has, on occa­sion, been referred to as the “War­ren Buf­fett of Cana­da” by the busi­ness press.

RIM’s new CEO, Thorsten Heins, is no stranger to the com­pa­ny. Last August, he was pro­mot­ed to serve as Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer (COO) for Prod­uct and Sales, after hav­ing served as Senior Vice Pres­i­dent for RIM’s hand­held busi­ness unit. Pri­or to join­ing RIM in 2007, he served as Chief Tech­nol­o­gy Offi­cer (CTO) for Siemens AG, Europe’s largest elec­tron­ics and elec­tri­cal engi­neer­ing company.

“Mike and Jim took a bold step eigh­teen months ago when RIM pur­chased QNX to shep­herd the trans­for­ma­tion of the Black­Ber­ry plat­form for the next decade,” Heins said. “We are more con­fi­dent than ever that was the right path. It is Mike and Jim’s con­tin­ued unwill­ing­ness to sac­ri­fice long-term val­ue for short-term gain which has made RIM the great com­pa­ny that it is today. I share that phi­los­o­phy and am very excit­ed about the com­pa­ny’s future.”

Research in Motion has sched­uled a glob­al town hall meet­ing tomor­row for its employ­ees to give them a chance to ask ques­tions and get answers from its new CEO and out­go­ing co-CEOs. The town hall will take place at 7 AM Pacif­ic Time.

The com­pa­ny has already post­ed a series of get-to-know Thorsten Heins videos on its offi­cial Inside Black­Ber­ry blog, in which Heins dis­cuss­es his vision and objec­tives for the com­pa­ny, as well as RIM’s upcom­ing Play­Book 2.0 update.

As Black­Ber­ry users and enthu­si­asts, we at NPI have become increas­ing­ly con­cerned about Research in Motion’s future — though we believe the com­pa­ny gets a bad rap from the tech press, which is enam­ored with Apple and Google. There’s no ques­tion that RIM has stum­bled recent­ly, though it is hard­ly on the verge of col­laps­ing or going bank­rupt. We’ve long felt that what the com­pa­ny needs is a strong leader who can deliv­er prod­ucts in a time­ly fash­ion and do a bet­ter job of man­ag­ing expec­ta­tions. And it appears RIM now has such a leader in Thorsten Heins.

Heins has already made one smart move: Ear­li­er this evening, he per­son­al­ly called the founder of Crack­Ber­ry (one of the world’s most pop­u­lar Black­Ber­ry com­mu­ni­ties) to share the news of his pro­mo­tion to the top job. That’s the kind of out­reach that RIM needs to be doing more of. A well-run com­pa­ny is a com­pa­ny that makes itself as acces­si­ble as pos­si­ble to its loy­al customers.

We extend our con­grat­u­la­tions to Mr. Heins on his new respon­si­bil­i­ties. We wish him noth­ing but the utmost suc­cess. For years, we have depend­ed on Black­Ber­ry smart­phones and tablets to keep us con­nect­ed to NPI’s vir­tu­al infra­struc­ture while on the go or in the field. And we will con­tin­ue to. Our work requires a mobile plat­form with robust mes­sag­ing capa­bil­i­ties, built-in secu­ri­ty, and well-sup­port­ed pro­duc­tiv­i­ty appli­ca­tions. Black­Ber­ry is that platform.

FOR MORE:

• Jim Bal­sil­lie and Mike Lazaridis out, Thorsten Heins in as new CEO of RIM
• At Research In Motion, a new CEO vows to silence the doomsayers
• Thorsten Heins, new CEO, talks about the future of RIM and BlackBerry
• Weigh­ing in on Research In Motion’s new CEO, Thorsten Heins
• RIM Changes CEOs as Black­Ber­ry Mak­er Strug­gles Against Apple