It’s still too early to say BlackBerry is in great shape but the company is clearly much better off than it was a year ago when it looked like it was in its last throes. A lot of credit for this turnaround goes to CEO John Chen, who has helped the company stabilize its finances while also moving it away from relying on mobile device sales and more toward making money from enterprise software and services.
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Because of this, CNN very nearly named Chen its “CEO of the Year,” although in the end Chen lost out to Apple CEO Tim Cook. Nonetheless, Chen did finish in second place, which is hugely impressive given where his company was a year ago. CNN said that Chen this year’s “comeback kid” in its explanation for why he deserved a spot on its list of the year’s best CEOs.
“Chen stopped the bleeding at the Canadian tech giant,” CNN writes. “He’s focused more on software and is not trying to win smartphone market share from fickle consumers at all costs. Shares have surged 35% in 2014 and investors are no longer worried that the company will go under or that it needs to be taken over to survive.”
All told, these are well deserved accolades for the BlackBerry boss and here’s hoping the company’s momentum carries over into 2015.
