Dallas, Texas 07/21/2014 (FINANCIALSTRENDS) – BlackBerry Ltd. (NASDAQ:BBRY) today announced the appointment of Marty Beard as the Company’s new Chief Operating Officer, effective immediately. In his new position, Mr. Beard will oversee cross-functional organizations, including BlackBerry 10 Application Development, Quality, Marketing and Customer Care. Mr. Beard will also be responsible for ensuring best practices and processes.
Profile Brief: Marty Beard
Mr. Beard, prior to joining BlackBerry Ltd. (NASDAQ:BBRY) served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of LiveOps, Inc. which is a leading cloud application provider for customer service. LiveOps leveraged his expertise to improve customer service interactions using the mobile, cloud and social interactions. Previously, Mr. Beard was President of a Sybase, Inc. subsidiary, Sybase 365 which is a mobile commerce service and mobile messaging services provider. Mr. Beard held a number of executive positions at Sybase 365 including Senior Vice President of Marketing. Prior to Sybase 365, Mr. Beard worked with Oracle Online, which is an e-Commerce service unit of Oracle Corporation (NYSE:ORCL). As a Vice President at Oracle Online, Mr. Beard was responsible for optimizing the use of Web to improve customer sales and support.
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of BlackBerry, John Chen expressed that the Company continues to attract top talent and its new COO, Mr. Beard brings significant experience in marketing, operations and customer services by leveraging best available technologies and processes.
Profile Brief: John Chen
The struggling mobile communications leader, BlackBerry Ltd. (NASDAQ:BBRY) last year appointed Mr. Chen as its Interim Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Chen joined BlackBerry from Sybase Inc. where he was serving as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer where he led the company’s transition to high growth innovator, accomplishing more than 50 succeeding quarters of profitability. Mr. Chen led Sybase from slower growth company to a leading provider of enterprise mobility and mobile commerce solutions. Mr. Chen also serves on the Board of Directors for Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE:WFC). and The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS).
