“A True Mentor”

Nita White-Ivy, Chief Human Resources Officer of BlackBerry’s influence in developing and structuring the global Human Resources team, has ensured that the team is mobilized to support BlackBerry’s rapid pace of growth and change. Her unwavering commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion in all aspects of HR and the business drives the hiring and development of a highly skilled and effective workforce. Nita’s willingness to invest in technology to automate and support HR functions has allowed the HR team to devote focus to strategic initiatives while ensuring compliance and accountability are built into everything we do. “Her seat at the leadership table, and her role in establishing and maintaining trust and credibility with the executive leadership team, enables HR to contribute to significant and meaningful business initiatives,” says Jennifer Bramhill, VP of Employee Relations and HR Business Partner.

“BlackBerry (NYSE: BB; TSX: BB) provides intelligent security software and services to enterprises and governments around the world. The company secures more than 500M endpoints including 175M cars on the road today. Based in Waterloo, Ontario, the company leverages AI and machine learning to deliver innovative solutions in the areas of cybersecurity, safety and data privacy solutions, and is a leader in the areas of endpoint security, endpoint management, encryption, and embedded systems. BlackBerry’s vision is clear - to secure a connected future you can trust.”

Developing entrepreneurial spirit and career growth for women is an objective that is close to Nita’s heart. She also believes in sharing her career and leadership experience with aspiring women leaders, hoping that it would serve as an inspiration for them in the pursuit of their career aspirations. Mentorship, Sponsorship, Job Rotation, and DE&I Programs, which also include a special course (Taking the Stage – a self-discovery, reflection, and sharing experience) for women leaders and aspiring leaders of the HR initiatives she is passionate about.

According to her, global travel and experience provide people with better understanding, appreciation, and consideration of multiple perspectives. It builds patience, flexibility, and respect for other cultures that can only translate into what Nita believes as development of cultural emotional intelligence. This equips the HR practitioner with the real-life education to design more appropriate cross-cultural HR programs, communications, training, and support plus create positive climate for global diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Nita values the opportunity to mentor, coach, and develop her team members. She finds it very rewarding to see each member grow and succeed professionally. Nita often uses the HR organization as a beta site to test and model the company’s employee development, job rotation, and hiring of student co-ops and interns as a pipeline for organizational mentorship, graduating students’ conversion to regular employees, and succession planning.

According to Nita, the pandemic has been an unprecedented challenge to companies and their HR organizations. Unfortunately, there is no “best-practice box” to draw from for HR practitioners to meet and solve the challenges, uncertainties, and issues each day brings. For the BlackBerry HR team, the most precious results of navigating the pandemic have been (1) bonding more closely together and caring for each other amidst the greater need and expectation for HR support, guidance, and communication from global management and employees; (2) experiencing the satisfaction of seeing the HR Business Continuity Program working effectively and timely in processing global HR transactions; and (3) ensuring the company achieves their foremost objectives of (a) protecting the health and safety of the employees; (b) maintaining ongoing and close HR communication with the people leaders and employees, an example of which is through HR’s publication of “Be Safe and Well Informed,” and; (c) keeping abreast of local government and health authorities directives/mandates and ensuring company compliance.

“BlackBerry’s HR organization, under the leadership of Nita White-Ivy, consistently delivers exceptional support when addressing critical matters involving our most valuable commodity – our people. Timely and effective administration of a comprehensive framework of policies and business processes enables a balanced, consistent and equitable approach across our teams while also protecting BlackBerry’s interests within the marketplace,” says Chris Hummel, CIO of BlackBerry who works closely with Nita.

BlackBerry is delivering the next generation of cloud-based AI cybersecurity solutions to address today and tomorrow’s cybersecurity threats and ensure organizations of all sizes remain safe, secure, and productive. BlackBerry is a leader in the IoT and embedded software systems market with its software installed in over 500 million connected devices, including over 175 million automobiles. For the days to come, BlackBerry is poised to extend this position by accelerating the adoption of emerging automotive connected services with its BlackBerry IVY platform, co-developed with AWS, as well as by expanding its footprint in safety-critical connected endpoints found in industries such as transportation, medical, manufacturing, and robotics. IE