[Dapper37]

Article Page | TheStreet

RIM's Heins Deserves Props for Leadership
By Eric Jackson - 01/22/13 - 2:44 PM EST
Tickers in this article: RIMM
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- I still remember the moment I heard that Thorsten Heins had been named CEO of Research In Motion (RIMM) to replace Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie. The one-year anniversary was last Sunday. I remember because it came in the middle of the NFC Championship between the San Francisco 49ers and the New York Giants.
I recall thinking: How can this company announce this news in the middle of this football game? It was the perfect symbol of how tone deaf the company had been with their shareholder base.
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I'd never heard of Thorsten Heins but I assumed he was a puppet for outgoing co-CEO Mike Lazaridis, because a.) he'd worked at RIM since 2007 and b.) I had heard he'd been hand picked by Lazaridis.
For about the next six months, each time Heins spoke publicly, it seemed like he put his foot in his mouth. It was incredible to me how poor a communicator he was. In one of his first interviews, he said that RIM was doing just fine and the media and investors immediately jumped down his throat.
When RIMM pushed back the BlackBerry 10 launch to January this past summer, anyone who hadn't already written off RIMM did. Heins displayed no sense of urgency.
In July, I remember calling him the "worst communicating CEO I'd ever seen."
However, what wasn't obvious to me then, but which I began to hear over the end of the summer and then into the Fall, was that Heins was a solid, execution-focused CEO. Most employees actually liked him, even though he announced in the summer that he'd cut one-third of the workforce to conserve cash.
But in the past seven months, it's really impossible to point to any mistakes that Heins has made as CEO to this point a week before the critical BB10 launch.
The cost cuts. The cash management to date. Previewing BB10 to carriers and critical "opinion leaders." Offering cash awards for developers to port apps over to the new OS. Ensuring almost all of the top 100 apps were there. Delivering a snappy phone. Making the BB10 very interesting for their heartbeat-core enterprise and government customers (with "Balance" between work and personal). Offering existing users and CIOs incentives to move to BB10. Getting carriers onboard to support the new phones. Not selling the company at the lows or doing some partnership with another company that wasn't beneficial for RIMM but to make it look like RIMM had a big brother behind it.
Of course, the RIMM bears will say none of that matters unless/until Heins delivers a phone that is a hit. After all, almost everyone agrees that BB10 is a make-or-break moment for the company. So none of these moves matter if the new phones are a flop.
However, I think Thorsten Heins deserves credit for his stewardship of the company to date in this first year.
As former co-CEO Jim Balsillie once said, RIMM has had to walk through the Valley of Death this year in transitioning from one platform to another. Most companies fail to make that transition. While the jury is still out on the final verdict for RIMM, only the biggest cynic couldn't acknowledge that Heins has done a solid job this year.
And the feelings within the company have obviously improved with the rising stock price and the approach of the new BB10 launch. The biggest impression I have of Heins as a leader is: practical, hard-working and results-focused.
In some ways, he's the German stereotype you'd ask for from central casting. But you can't argue with where it's brought the company to thus far.
It's also clear to me that the two former co-CEOs are no longer running the show. Balsillie left the board last March in a huff and, even though Mike Lazaridis is still Chairman and head of an Innovation Council at the company, I understand that his office is no longer in the same building as Thorsten. It's across town in an R&D Center.
Thorsten Heins is his own man. He truly has the reins of this company and the support of its board.
To use an American analogy from football, Heins is the quarterback who has led his team down the field during the two-minute drill to try and win the game and give the company a new lease on life. RIMM is now in the Red Zone and Heins must finish the job and get the ball in the endzone.
If he can, he'll be a hero. If he can't, no one will remember all the good stuff he's done to this point.
I think we could have another Joe Flacco on our hands.
At the time of publication, the author was long RIMM.
Follow @ericjackson

[Dapper37]

"Joseph Vincent Flacco (born January 16, 1985) is an American football starting quarterback for the Baltimore Ravens of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football for the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Delaware. He was the 18th overall pick by the Ravens in the first round of the 2008 NFL Draft.

In his rookie year, he threw for 2,971 yards, 14 touchdowns, and 12 interceptions while starting all 16 regular season games, and became only the eighth rookie quarterback in NFL history to start a playoff game. By leading the Ravens to two road wins in the 2008-09 NFL Playoffs, he became the first rookie quarterback in league history to win two playoff games. "

That's Joe Flacco!!
Special thanks to Black beats Gaza!! For telling me who Joe was.

[Bold_until_Hybrid_Comes]

Let's go AFC

[anon(2757538)]

Let's go AFC

Naw...NFC is the future

(pun intended)

[simu31]

Thanks for the article FanBlackBerrytastic.
This sentance kinda annoyed me...

I recall thinking: How can this company announce this news in the middle of this football game? It was the perfect symbol of how tone deaf the company had been with their shareholder base.

Because it's not a f***ing American company!!!

Si.

[bdguru]

Let's go Flacco and the Ravens. UD as well.