BlackBerry Names Ex-Cisco Exec As New Global Sales President

BlackBerry Monday named Carl Wiese, former global collaboration business senior vice president at Cisco Systems, as president of global sales, which includes channel sales.

Wiese will replace John Sims, who has been with BlackBerry since December 2013. BlackBerry said in a statement Sims has "left the company" but did not provide further details.

"We are deeply committed to working with our customers to bring them the most innovative and secure solutions, and Carl will be central to that effort," said BlackBerry CEO John Chen in a statement. "Carl has extensive experience in enterprise software and emerging technology solutions, which will be instrumental as BlackBerry moves toward stabilizing revenue and sustaining profitability."

[Related: BlackBerry, Google Team Up On Enterprise-Friendly Android OS]

According to his LinkedIn page, Wiese spent a little more than 12 years at Cisco, where he started as vice president of advanced technologies sales, which includes a focus on security, and later acted as senior vice president of global collaboration sales. Before Cisco, Wiese held jobs at mobile vendors such as Avaya, Lucent and Apple.

BlackBerry's hiring of Wiese is the latest in a series of executive transitions for the Waterloo, Ontario-based company, which has been facing pressure to make improvements across the board as its mobile business plummets. The company in February hired David Kleidermacher as its new chief security officer.

Though BlackBerry reported a first-quarter loss during its latest earnings, the company in June said its software and technology licensing revenue were soaring, which Chen said represented the company's renewed focus on mobile device management and security software as opposed to the company's lagging hardware business.

David Felton, founder of Norwalk, Conn.-based BlackBerry partner Canaan Technology, applauded BlackBerry's executive switch-up as an example of this tighter focus on security software.

"BlackBerry's strength is security, so my feeling is that hiring a Cisco veteran with experience in security is BlackBerry's chance of success," said Felton. "It makes sense for them to get the conversation going about security."

Felton said channel partners will see an indirect impact from BlackBerry's new hire as the company strives to ramp up security solutions for larger integrators.

"Carl will be able to open doors for larger integrators who are security-focused," he said. "Being able to sell to larger groups and integrators will trickle down to the smaller businesses that we serve, so this will be good for us."

PUBLISHED JULY 13, 2015