NeoWin Reports Former Blackberry Exec Returns to Microsoft

[Jazmac]

Alec Saunders, a former BlackBerry executive who left the company late last year has now joined Microsoft for a position in Microsoft Ventures, a branch that works with startups. In a recent blog post, he stated:

Despite being away from Microsoft for 14 years, my experiences there provided some of the most enduring lessons of my career ? lessons that I have relied on daily in every role I?ve held since. Those lessons range from campaign mechanics, to management, culture, scale and execution. As many of my former staff at BlackBerry will tell you, we often took lessons from Microsoft and applied them to great effect.

So it was natural that one of the first companies I reached out to after leaving BlackBerry would be Microsoft. As of last Monday, I?ve rejoined Microsoft in the role of Principal Technical Evangelist. My beat is Canada ? not just Kitchener-Waterloo. My boss is Microsoft Chief Evangelist and Corporate Vice President for Developer Experience, Steven ?Guggs? Guggenheimer. I?m part of the global Microsoft Ventures team. And we run programs, like the Microsoft Ventures Accelerators, that are focused on helping early stage companies achieve their full potential.

​

 

[ajst222]

I've got no problem with Alec Saunders. I don't really think that he was part of that Thorsten Heins/Frank Boulben team that treated BlackBerry like a party bus and drove it into the ground. It seemed like he genuinely tried to do his job (VP Developer Relations), but was unable to because of a poor leadership team that made his job harder and didn't give a d@mn.