Research in Motion's (RIM) Chief Legal Officer Karima Bawa has resigned and will soon depart from the struggling BlackBerry maker, RIM announced on Monday, May 28. The departure of RIM's top lawyer adds to a longer list of long-time executives to leave the company since Thorsten Heins was appointed CEO earlier this year.
The resignation of the Chief Legal Officer, who litigated many patent battles and helped RIM write many of its commercial deals, comes shortly after RIM's head of global sales, Patrick Spence, resigned last week.
"Thorsten Heins is reframing the RIM organization. Not everyone will fit into the new picture," noted IDC analyst Kevin Restivo, as cited by Reuters. "Departures, forced or otherwise, are inevitable anytime management sets a new course for an organization," added the analyst.
Massive Layoffs Expected
The departures precede massive layoffs expected this year, as RIM prepares to launch BlackBerry smartphones on a new operating system, entirely different from the OS used in its legacy phones. RIM's market share was considerably affected by fierce competition from Apple and a range of manufacturers using Google's popular Android OS. In the last year alone, RIM's shares have declined roughly 75 percent.
Karima Bawa joined RIM in 2000 and was promoted to general counsel and Chief Legal Officer in late 2010. Bawa intends to stay with the company until a suitable replacement is hired and during the transition, RIM said in an emailed statement in response to Reuters' inquiries about Bawa's status.
Heins' New Organizational Structure
RIM seems to be silently sweeping layers of management and recruiting new people to fill important roles in a new company structure shaped under Heins. Back in January, Heins himself replaced veteran CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie.
"Thorsten has a very different leadership style," said a former RIM employee who left the company several months ago, according to Reuters. "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 asked to remain unnamed in order to protect his ongoing business relationship with RIM.
Research in Motion currently employs roughly 16,500 people globally, but two sources "with close connections to RIM" told Reuters that the company intends to cut its workforce to around 10,000 by early next year. The sources spoke under condition of anonymity to protect their relationships with RIM. According to one of the sources cited by Reuters, the cuts will affect the company's legal, marketing, sales, operations, and human resources divisions.
RIM's Smartphone Struggles
"The Research In Motion people have come to know is very likely to be a much smaller organization in the near future," added IDC's Restivo, as cited by Reuters. "It's a reflection of the company's smartphone struggles. Call it a trailing indicator if you will." According to IDC, RIM's share of the global smartphone market dropped to 6.7 percent in the first quarter of 2012, compared to 13.6 percent a year earlier.
RIM plans to cut a slew of 2,000 jobs around June 1, one day before the end of its quarter, the Globe and Mail reported on Saturday, citing several sources close to the company. RIM said it cut 2,000 jobs last July, after its employee count soared close to 20,000 due to a string of acquisitions in recent years.
Parade of Departures
Balsillie, the highest profile departure, cut all formal ties to RIM, but is still a major shareholder. Meanwhile, Lazaridis remains influential on the company's board. Chief Operating Officer (COO) Jim Rowan and RIM's head of software David Yach left the company in March, followed by Alan Brenner, a senior vice president for the BlackBerry platform, and Alistair Mitchell, RIM's vice president for the BlackBerry Messenger. The head of RIM's India unit left the company back in November, the head of government relations departed months before that, while former Chief Marketing Officer Keith Pardy left more than a year ago.
RIM announced this month it had hired wireless veteran Frank Boulben to fill Pardy's position at the company. The company has also appointed Kristian Tear as its single Chief Operating Officer, replacing Heins, who is now CEO, Rowan, who left the company, and Don Morrison, who retired last year.
