John S. Chen

John S. Chen (; born July 1, 1955) is a Hong Kong-American businessman serving as executive chairman and chief executive officer of BlackBerry Ltd. Previously, he served as the chief executive officer and president of Sybase, a software vendor specializing in data management, analytics, and mobility technology. Chen has also served on the boards of Walt Disney Company and Wells Fargo & Company and was appointed by U.S. President George W. Bush to serve on the President's Export Council in 2005. Early life and education Born in Hong Kong, Chen traces his ancestral origin to Wuxi, Jiangsu. His family migrated from Shanghai during the Chinese civil war. Chen studied at La Salle College in Hong Kong until Form 5, before going to the United States and graduating from Northfield Mount Hermon School, a preparatory school in Northfield, Massachusetts. He went on to graduate from Brown University in 1978 with a B.S., magna cum laude in electrical engineering, and in 1979, with an M.S. in electrical engineering from Caltech. Career Chen began his career in 1979 as a design engineer with Unisys, where he eventually served as vice president and general manager of, in turn, the Convergent RISC Platform Division and the Convergent UNIX Systems Group. In 1991 he joined Pyramid Technology Corporation as executive vice president. Chen was elected president, chief operating officer and a director of Pyramid in 1993, serving until 1995.