When Steve Zipperstein received a phone call to see if he’d be interested in the job of chief legal officer at Blackberry Inc., he was retired and sitting on the beach in Santa Barbara. After more than a decade with Verizon Wireless, he and his wife moved to the coastal community in Southern California and had no intention of leaving.
The position that opened with Blackberry in 2012 sounded tempting, but Zipperstein wasn’t interested in relocating to the company’s headquarters in Waterloo, Ontario. So the company allowed him to oversee the legal department of 45 while staying put in Santa Barbara. (He travels plenty though, spending about half of his time on the road visiting the Canadian headquarters and other offices).
