Nokia press conference about the CEO change

With the announcement of the CEO change that is planned for the Q4 2020, Nokia held a press conference held by Barry French who is the Chief Marketing Officer of Nokia. At the stage, you could see the current president of the Board Chair Risto Slilasmaa, Sari Baldauf the Nokia Board Chair nominee, Rajeev Suri the current CEO, and the future CEO of Nokia Pekka Lundmark.
The change of the CEO position was kind of expected since the change in the Board of Nokia already happened in November 2019. As Risto mentioned in the press conference, the news affected people more than maybe it should, but I am glad to see that the current Board Chair, the future Board chair, and current CEO were working together to find the next CEO of Nokia and that they found a Nokia veteran. Even though Rajeev announced to the board his plans of stepping down, he looked a bit beaten. But, Rajeev Suri will stay at Nokia as an advisor till January 1st, so the transition will be smooth both for him and Nokia.

This is what just a short abstract of what was said at the press conference (thx NokiaMob Lover for this):

– Suri defended his record, saying that when he took over as CEO of Nokia Siemens Networks in 2009, the year’s operating profit was 28 million euros. “I’m not entirely satisfied with last year but we still had 2 billion compared to that 28 million,” he said.
– Risto Siilasmaa implied that fresh blood was needed. He said that the firm had considered candidates both internally and externally before settling on a decision, and “for those internal candidates, we decided that now was not the time.”
– Siilasmaa & Lundmark said, “We are not evaluating such strategic options at the moment”.
– Suri said under his tenure Nokia has become the world’s No 2 player in telecommunications infrastructure rising from No. 4 after the acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent. In addition to bringing in Alcatel-Lucent’s optical/IP transport and fixed broadband expertise, Suri also extended the company’s portfolio into enterprise and software, and he helped grow Nokia’s patent licensing activities into a sustainable business and also brought back the mobile phone section.

Do check the full press release by heading to Nokia pages:

https://my.icareus.com/web/bright/player/embed/webcast?eventId=42144713&playerId=42073592

Strangely, Nobody mentioned Elop. As I remember he was the CEO of Nokia before Suri. Seems like everybody forgot about him 🙂

Cheers NokiaMob lover for the tip 😉