John Chen

John Chen will become interim CEO of Blackberrry Ltd and executive chair of its board of directors upon the closing of a $1-billion private placement in the company, expected by November 18th. He replaces Thorsten Heins, who has led the Waterloo ON-based firm through two turbulent years in which it has lost market share, posted billion dollar losses and laid off thousands of workers. Chen, former CEO and chairman of Sybase Inc, Berkeley CA, is a successful entrepreneur and executive who has held senior positions with Siemens AG, Pyramid Technology Corp and Burroughs Corp. While at Sybase, he transformed a moribund, mature information technology company into a high-growth innovator of data management, data warehousing, mobility management and analytics. The company was sold to SAP AG in 2010 for US $5.8 billion. Blackberry has initiated a search for a permanent CEO....