BlackBerry Ltd (TSX: BB) named Carl Wiese as head of global sales on Monday, an appointment that comes at a critical juncture for the smartphone industry pioneer, which needs to spur top-line growth in order for its turnaround efforts to succeed.

Wiese has spent the past 12 years at Cisco Systems, first heading advanced technology sales and later its collaboration-product sales efforts. Those teams focus on aspects such as security and web conferencing, areas that BlackBerry is trying to expand within.

At BlackBerry, Wiese replaces John Sims, who had been with the company for 18 months.

BlackBerry said Wiese, who has previously worked with Apple Inc, Avaya, Lucent and Texas Instruments, will be responsible for driving its go-to-market strategy and global sales efforts.

The move comes less than three weeks after BlackBerry posted weaker-than-expected sales growth from its software business in the first quarter.
BlackBerry CEO John Chen, who set a software revenue target of $500 million for the current fiscal year, has built his turnaround plan around a software growth strategy, hoping sales from device-management software and fledgling areas like the Internet of Things can replace BlackBerry's traditional service fee structure and falling revenue from smartphone sales.

Chen indicated last month that he remains comfortable with the $500-million revenue target, and noted that some of that growth is set to come from acquisitions.