Born: 1954, Germany
Education: MA in Science and Physics, Germany

1984: Siemens, started in positions across R&D, customer service, sales and product management, and eventually graduated to technology officer

2007: RIM, Senior VP for the handheld business unit

2011: RIM, COO

2012: RIM, CEO

When taking on the role as president and CEO of Research in Motion (RIM) in January, Thorsten Heins can’t have been under any illusion that he would step in and enjoy an easy ride. Taking over from company co-founders Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie, Heins has entered something of a shipwreck, plagued with plummeting profits and a gloomy outlook.

RIM’s star product, the Blackberry, is much to blame for the misery in which the company finds itself at the moment. Launched in 2003, its multitasking abilities included push email, which was something of a novelty at the time of its launch – made the device indispensable to the extent that it acquired the nickname ‘crackberry’. But the addictive allure of the contraption quickly faded, as a younger and more attractive model entered the scene, namely the glamorous iPhone. Due to the roaring popularity of Apple’s constantly evolving smartphone, sales of Blackberry devices have dwindled sharply, with RIM shares taking an equally dramatic nosedive. For the three months leading up to 3rd March 2012, the company suffered a net loss of $125m while it took home a profit of $934m the previous year.

In a desperate attempt to reverse the misfortunes of Blackberry and its host company, a string of RIM’s top executives stepped down to make way for fresh blood. The towering, Munich-born Heins is the leading force of this new team, which is based in RIM’s headquarters in Waterloo, Ontario. Before bagging the top position, the father of two served as Chief Operating Officer of the Product Engineering division, overseeing the BlackBerry smartphone portfolio worldwide. Considering that he was in charge of the very division that brought RIM to its knees, it’s debatable whether he is indeed the right man for the job.

First time CEO
This is Heins’ first CEO role, at 54 years-of-age, but his CV is studded with a range of other executive positions in the wireless arena, one of the most notable being the role as Chief Technology Officer of Siemens’ Communications Division. It was these credentials, coupled with a physics-based education, that convinced the RIM management that Heins was a suitable recruit. “He’s had classic training in physics and numerous engineering roles, and has also gone through Siemens management training. So he has a tremendous amount of experience in the category that we work in,” said RIM founder Lazaridis in a recent interview published by Bloomberg corporation.

So what is the first-time CEO’s track record of nursing the struggling divisions back to health? Not so good, it appears. While he is allegedly in possession of a “good technical vision” which contributed to some success at Siemens in terms of the launch of new business lines, his talent at reinvigorating units in need of a boost is less impressive. His disappointing attempt to improve the state of Siemens’ cell-phone unit comes to mind. This failure has given his critics a reason to deem his chances of successfully reinvigorating RIM rather slight.

On a personal level, Heins is a man with a love of the outdoors who likes to keep himself to himself, and his name is little known in the industry. A media-friendly hotshot he is not; he isn’t likely to provide the papers with juicy gossip, unless it relates directly to his performance at RIM. In terms of the day-to-day running of the company and the handling of staff, Heins’ managerial method is based upon honesty. “The first thing you need to do with your employees is you’ve got to be open,” Heins recently told Bloomberg. “Tell them where we are. They’re thinking it themselves anyways. You cannot sit there and say, ‘Hooray, hooray, I’m rocking in the US’ if you aren’t. So you have that realism there. But also, you have to get them excited about the future of BlackBerry.” While he comes across as agreeable, fair and honest, Heins apparently has a tougher side, and has admitted that he can be dictatorial if needed. He is also known for being quite direct, and doesn’t ever shy away from speaking his mind and saying no.

“Future-proof” strategies  
Despite dire headlines and shocking losses, Heins stubbornly maintains that RIM is not as badly beaten up as rumour suggests. On the positive side, the company is debt free and is allegedly in possession of a cash sum of $2bn, while it counts a mighty 77 million subscribers to its client base. There’s no denying that sales in the US are in dramatic decline, but the company is enjoying success in some other regions, including Venezuela, Indonesia and South Africa.

Region-specific successes aside, RIM still has a long way to go if it is to win back its corporate consumer base. The decline of individual consumers has certainly contributed to the company’s lacklustre results, but the most significant blow has been the drop in orders from big corporations, entities that that now prefer to equip their staff with iPhone or Android variants. Last summer’s London riots served to widen the gap between Blackberry and its desired corporate image, as Blackberry’s free BBM messenger service was the favoured tool of communication between young looters and troublemakers. To distance Blackberry from this unfortunate demographic, Heins has confirmed that he intends to bring back the product line to its roots as a business-friendly tool above all.

Other survival tactics include the imminent launch of the Blackberry 10, along with the arrival of a new operating system that is long overdue. Heins says these steps will help to redefine mobile multitasking. He also believes the strategy will provide a “future-proof” platform for RIM. In the ruthlessly competitive and fast-paced world of mobile technology, there is no such thing as “future-proof” and complacency could prove lethal.

Heins, if anyone, should know that.