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There's been no shortage of stockholder (and customer) discontent directed at RIM in the past year, and needless to say, the names of the longtime co-CEOs — Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis — occasionally come up in conversations about leadership changes. To help quell investor rumblings in mid-2011, the company announced that it was appointing an independent committee to review its leadership structure; one of the points of contention was the dual role of the co-CEOs as co-chairmen of the board, and a report today from Canada's Financial Post suggests that the committee might be gearing up to take action.
FP's sources say that RIM is preparing to announce that both Balsillie and Lazaridis will give up their roles as chairmen and will likely be replaced by Barbara Stymiest, a former executive at TSX and RBC who currently sits on RIM's review committee. Note that the move has no bearing on the pair's roles as co-CEOs — that remains unchanged, though there's no doubt increased pressure on them to deliver with BlackBerry 10 this year and steer the Waterloo ship back on course. The committee's deadline for a decision is January 31st, so we expect to hear more on this soon.
