* Karima Bawa ran RIM’s litigation, commercial agreements
* Lawyer joins head of global sales in exiting RIM
* Departures come as new CEO puts stamp on company
* RIM plans make-or-break BlackBerry launch later in year
* Shares rise slightly on Toronto Stock Exchange
By Alastair Sharp
TORONTO, May 28 (Reuters) – The top lawyer at Research In
Motion Ltd has resigned and will soon leave the
struggling BlackBerry maker, RIM said on Monday, joining a
parade of long-time company executives to depart since Thorsten
Heins took over as CEO earlier this year.
The loss of Chief Legal Officer Karima Bawa – who litigated
numerous patent disputes and helped write many of RIM’s
commercial deals – follows the resignation of RIM’s head of
global sales, Patrick Spence, last week. [ID :nL1E8GOPR2]
“Thorsten Heins is reframing the RIM organization. Not
everyone will fit into the new picture,” said IDC analyst Kevin
Restivo. “Departures, forced or otherwise, are inevitable
anytime management sets a new course for an organization.”
The resignations come ahead of what are expected to be
massive layoffs this year as the company prepares to launch
BlackBerry smartphones run by an operating system completely
different from that used in its legacy phones.
RIM’s shares have fallen some 75 percent in the last year
while its market share has shriveled against competition from
iPhone maker Apple Inc and a slew of manufacturers
using Google Inc’s Android operating system.
RIM’s Toronto-listed rose 0.9 percent to C$11.34 late Monday
afternoon. The company’s Nasdaq-listed shares were not
trading due to a U.S. holiday.
Bawa, who joined RIM in 2000, was promoted to general
counsel and chief legal officer in late 2010.
She plans to stay with the company while a replacement is
hired and during a transition, R IM said in an emailed statement
after Reuters asked about Bawa’s status.
Analysts and former employees have long complained about
what they viewed as a hyper-cautious corporate approach at RIM.
That grew out of a drawn-out patent dispute early in the
company’s rise and was exacerbated by the hiring of a slew of
in-house lawyers afterwards.
CLEANING HOUSE
RIM is quietly cleaning out layers of management and
recruiting f resh faces to fill important roles in a new
structure being fashioned under Heins, who himself replaced
longtime co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie in January.
“Thorsten has a very different leadership style,” said one
former RIM employee who left several months ago. “He is picking
a very specific organizational structure, inner circle, external
hires and strategy, and a lot of folks aren’t 100 percent
comfortable with it.”
The former employee spoke on the condition of anonymity to
protect his ongoing business relationship with the company.
The Waterloo, Ontario-based company currently employs around
16,500 people globally. Two sources with close connections to
RIM have told Reuters that RIM plans to bring its workforce
closer to 10,000 by early next year.
The sources asked to go unidentified because their
disclosures would hurt their relationships with RIM.
The cuts will affect RIM’s legal, marketing, sales,
operations, and human resources divisions, one of the sources
said.
“The Research In Motion people have come to know is very
likely to be a much smaller organization in the near future,”
said IDC’s Restivo. “It’s a reflection of the company’s
smartphone struggles. Call it an trailing indicator if you
will.”
RIM’s share of the global smartphone market slipped to 6.7
percent in the first quarter of 2012 from 13.6 percent a year
earlier, according to IDC.
A round of 2,000 job cuts was planned for around June 1, the
day before the end of RIM’s quarter, the Globe and Mail said on
Saturday, citing several people close to the company.
Last July RIM said it cut 2,000 jobs, after its worker count
ballooned to near 20,000 following a string of acquisitions in
recent years.
Balsillie remains the departure with the highest profile.
While cutting all formal ties to the company, he remains a major
shareholder. Lazaridis is still influential on the board.
A chief operating officer, Jim Rowan, and the head of
software David Yach left in March. Soon after, Alan Brenner, a
senior vice president for the BlackBerry platform, and Alistair
Mitchell, vice president for the BlackBerry Messenger instant
messaging product, also left.
The head of RIM’s India unit left in November, its head of
government relations left months before that, and former chief
marketing officer Keith Pardy departed more than a year ago.
RIM said this month it had replaced Pardy with wireless
veteran Frank Boulben, who has yet to start work.
It has also named Kristian Tear as its single chief
operating officer. He replaces Heins, who took the CEO job,
Rowan, who departed, and a third operating head, Don Morrison,
who retired last year.
