Nokia fires CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, hires ex-Microsoft president Stephen Elop instead
By Florin on 10 Sep 10Nokia has started looking for a new CEO since July, and now the company has finally found one.
The really interesting part about this is that the new CEO is not from Finland, and not even from Europe. He’s Stephen Elop, a Canadian-born computer engineer who, until now, was President of Microsoft’s Business Division.
As Microsoft puts it, the Business Division and Stephen Elop were “responsible for the Microsoft Office system of programs, servers and software-based services, Microsoft Dynamics, business applications for small and midsize businesses, large organizations and divisions of global enterprises and Microsoft’s Unified Communications, products that provide complete software-based communications tools to business.”
Before Microsoft, Stephen Elop worked in top positions at Adobe Systems, Macromedia, Juniper Networks, and even a company called Boston Chicken, Inc. (don’t be fooled by the name, the company activated in the computer networking industry).
At Nokia, Elop will be Chief Executive Officer starting September 21. The company’s current CEO, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, will be released from function on September 20 – he will, however, “continue to chair the Board of Nokia Siemens Networks in a non-executive capacity”.
OPK will receive severance payment and target incentive of about €4.6 million, plus “the fair market value of 100,000 restricted Nokia shares.” I guess he won’t be too upset about all this, right?
Jorma Ollila, Chairman of the Nokia Board of Directors, justifies the naming of the new CEO this way:
“The time is right to accelerate the company’s renewal; to bring in new executive leadership with different skills and strengths in order to drive company success. The Nokia Board believes that Stephen has the right industry experience and leadership skills to realize the full potential of Nokia. His strong software background and proven record in change management will be valuable assets as we press harder to complete the transformation of the company. We believe that Stephen will be able to drive both innovation and efficient execution of the company strategy in order to deliver increased value to our shareholders.”
(no longer will we see Stephen Elop presenting Microsoft events, like in the photo above)
It’s really early to say what the new CEO can bring to Nokia, but the company’s Board of Directors seems to be quite confident that he will get the job done better than Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo. Will he regain lost market share? Will he bring a new game-changing smartphone, like the N95 was back in its days? Let’s wait and find out.
Via Press release
If you liked the post, you might find these interesting too:
- Nokia’s Chairman, Jorma Ollila, may also step down. In 2012
- Nokia’s head of Mobile Solutions (Anssi Vanjoki) resigns
- Elop: Rumors about Nokia selling its mobile business to Microsoft are baseless
- Nokia confirms intentions to enter laptop business – Nokia Sparrow might be real
- Nokia adjusts strategy, cuts 10,000 jobs, changes execs, buys Scalado, sells Vertu
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