Research in Motion (RIM) just announced two new hires to its executive leadership team, employing Kristian Tear as COO and Frank Boulben as CMO. This move is apart of new RIM boss Thorsten Heins’ massive restructuring of the company to get rid of some of the “fat on the hip,” as he called it. These hires are also apart of Heins’ operation ‘laser focus’.
Who is Kristian Tear and Frank Boulben, you ask? Well, Tear comes to RIM from Sony Mobile, where he most recently worked as executive VP, while Boulben is a former executive VP at the financially challenged company, LightSquared.
In the BlackBerry makers press release announcing the hires, RIM CEO Thorsten Heins said that “Kristian and Frank bring extensive knowledge of the rapidly changing wireless global market and will help RIM as we sharpen our focus on delivering long-term value to our stakeholders.”
These hires should come as no surprise, as Heins before mentioned his interest in searching for a new COO and CMO soon. The problem with these hires is Heins believes Tear and Boulben “possess a keen understanding of the emerging trends in mobile communications and computing.” This is highly debatable.
Lets put these hires in better perspective. One man is from Sony Mobile, a manufacturing company that’s made virtually no noise in the mobile technology business, and the other guy is from a company on the brink of extinction, LightSquared. These two are going to bring RIM back to prominence?
Well, I guess time will tell…
[via Yahoo news]