BlackBerry named former Cisco executive Carl Wiese as its president of global sales, with responsibility for “advancing the company’s global sales efforts to drive growth”.

Wiese replaces John Sims, who has left the company, BlackBerry said in a statement – without providing further detail.

The appointment of a former Cisco executive reflects BlackBerry’s shift to primarily become an enterprise mobility management player.

“Carl has extensive experience in enterprise software and emerging technology solutions, which will be instrumental as BlackBerry moves toward stabilising revenue and sustaining profitability,” John Chen, CEO, said.

During his tenure at Cisco, Wiese “successfully drove the company’s sales and deployment for new and emerging technologies that represented some of the company’s highest potential growth segments”.

Wiese has also held executive positions at Apple, Avaya, Lucent Technologies and Texas Instruments.