Jim Balsillie

James Laurence Balsillie (born February 3, 1961) is a Canadian businessman and philanthropist.

Jim Balsillie was born in 1961 in Seaforth, Ontario to Raymond Balsillie, an electronics technician at Ontario Hydro, and Laurel Balsillie.

The family moved to Peterborough when Jim was five years old.

He received a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Trinity College at the University of Toronto in 1984, where he was also a member of the Zeta Psi fraternity.

He earned an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1989.

After graduating from Harvard Business School, Balsillie was an executive

vice-president and chief financial officer of technology for Cambridge, Ontario-based design and construction services company Sutherland-Schultz.

He left that position in 1992 when Sutherland-Schultz was sold to the Vollmer Group.

In 1992, after initially making overtures to buy the company, Balsillie invested CA$125,000 (equivalent to $million in ) in Research In Motion (RIM) and joined as co-CEO with founder Mike Lazaridis.

The company had fewer than ten employees and would eventually become the "international powerhouse" called BlackBerry Limited, with as many as 28,000 employees.

Both men prospered from the partnership: Lazaridis looked after the technological side and Balsillie looked after the sales, business and accounting side.

Many people considered that Balsillie infused RIM with "institutional arrogance" as he remade the landscape of the smartphone industry.

He was "feared and respected" by senior managers within his hierarchy.

The twin-CEO structure of Lazaridis and Balsillie eventually became cumbersome and inhibited their competition with the Apple iPhone and Google's Android devices.

On October 5, 2006, Balsillie made a bid to purchase the Pittsburgh Penguins franchise for US$185million (equivalent to $million in ) from owners Mario Lemieux and Ronald Burkle.

On December 15, 2006, Balsillie withdrew his bid to buy the team after receiving a notice from NHL commissioner Gary Bettman that the league would negotiate the arena deal on his behalf and the league also wanted the right to take over the team if necessary.

On March 5, 2007, Balsillie resigned his role as chairman of RIM as the firm reported over US$250million (equivalent to $million in ) in past stock option accounting errors after an extensive review.

He retained his roles as co-chief executive and director.

On May 17, 2007, RIM announced that "Consistent with current best practices in corporate governance, the roles of Chairman and CEO have been separated.".

In June 2007, Apple brought its first touchscreen smartphone to the market.

BlackBerry would not have a touch-screen smartphone until after Balsillie's departure from the executive suite.

On May 23, 2007, it was announced that Balsillie had reached a tentative agreement to buy the Nashville Predators from Craig Leipold.

On June 28, 2007, CBC.ca reported that Leipold had decided not to sign a binding agreement with Balsillie.

The share value had tumbled from $137.41 in 2008 to $14.80 at the end of 2011.

By then, the iPhone from Apple had launched and cornered the mobile apps market, and some investors called for resignations from the executive suite.

In February 2009, as part of the penalties and sanctions approved by the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) in settling the improper option practices, which the OSC called a "fundamental failure of governance", Balsillie was forced to resign as a director of RIM.

In May 2010, almost immediately after the OSC sanctions expired, Balsillie was reappointed to the board, in spite of strong shareholder objections, and notwithstanding RIM's earlier public representations that the roles of chairman and CEO were separated.

BlackBerry lost its market dominance to Google's Android technology in 2010, when the operating system of the machine, BlackBerry OS, had not been updated since March 2002.

One publication blamed "managerial gridlock" and deteriorating product quality for BlackBerry's fall from grace in the years from 2010 to 2013 and beyond.

The decline was steep for RIM: in the span of five years, the company had gone from Canada's most valuable property, surpassing even the biggest bank, to a tenth of its former value.

Balsillie commercialised 44,000 patents during his career at RIM, and claims he is "the largest commercial IP protagonist in the history of [Canada]."

Balsillie has been involved in three attempts to buy a National Hockey League franchise with the overt intention of moving it to Hamilton, Ontario.

He was the former chair and co-chief executive officer of the Canadian technology company Research In Motion (BlackBerry), which at its 2011 peak made US$19.9billion (equivalent to $billion in ) in annual sales.

At the end of 2011, Balsillie was the third largest shareholder of the company, holding 5.1% of the outstanding shares.

But that June, BlackBerry cut 2,000 employees, or 11% of its global workforce, and the joint CEOs reduced their pay to $1.

Since leaving Blackberry in 2012, Balsillie has taken up a number of roles in Canadian business and society.

He is the founder of the Balsillie School of International Affairs at the University of Waterloo, the Centre for International Governance and Innovation (CIGI) think tank, and serves as chair of the Canadian Council of Innovators.

On January 22, 2012, Balsillie and co-CEO Mike Lazaridis resigned from their positions and were replaced by RIM Chief Operating Officer Thorsten Heins.

Two months later, on March 29, 2012, RIM announced that Balsillie would be stepping down from the board of directors.

He resigned from the Board due to strategic differences with Heins, who abandoned the licensing strategy that Balsillie was pursuing.