BlackBerry CEO hires old friends

James S. Mackey was appointed Executive Vice President for Corporate Development and Strategic Planning. Mark Wilson was named Senior Vice President of Marketing. “Jim and Mark are important appointments for BlackBerry as they bring extensive experience and add the necessary leadership and depth that will help us drive our transformation,” said John Chen, Executive Chair and CEO of BlackBerry. “I have worked extensively with both of them in the past, have the utmost respect for their experience and accomplishments, and we have developed close and trusted relationships with each other that will enable us to cohesively manage the changes required to reshape BlackBerry.” Before joining BlackBerry, Mackey served as Senior Vice President of Corporate Development at Open Text Corp., as well as head of Corporate Development at SAP, where he developed and led the Company’s global merger and acquisitions group. Wilson will join BlackBerry in January from Avaya, where as CMO he led the marketing transition to a customer-solutions orientation. He previously served as Senior Vice President of Corporate and Field Marketing at Sybase, and has experience in marketing roles at AT&T and KPMG. At Sybase, he oversaw branding and advertising, lead generation, sales enablement and mobile product marketing operations.