New (Old) Faces at Nokia (former Nokians' Sari Baldauf & Pekka Lundmark return to lead Noia) ...
<< Nokia CEO Rajeev Suri is stepping down >>
Welcome back Sari and Pekka!
Sari Baulauf (65) who enticed Pekka Lundmark (56) back to Nokia after his absence of 20 years will take over from Risto Siilasmaa as Nokia Chairman at Noia's April Annual General Meeting. Pekka Lundmark is expected to take over as CEO on September 1. They have a big challenge ahead. Lagging a bit in 5G they suffered through a very tough calendar year in 2019.
Sari Baldauf originally joined Nokia in 1983 where she held various positions in the Strategic Planning and Business Development in Finland and USA. From 1988 to 1996 she became President of Nokia Cellular Systems where she and her team established the global basis for Nokia’s Mobile Networks business. In 1997, she became Executive Vice President of Nokia, Asia-Pacific and President of the Networks Division in 1998. She served as Executive Vice President and General Manager of the Networks business group of Nokia Corporation. From 1994 until January 2005 she was also a Member of the Executive Board of Nokia Corporation.
Baldauf has sat on Nokia’s board of directors since last year. In between her stints at Nokia she has also sat on the boards of companies including Daimler, Deutsche Telekom, Akzo Nobel and Finnish utility Fortum where Pekka Lundmark is currently CEO.
Baldauf was selected as the most influential female executive in the year 1998 by Fortune. In 2002 Wall Street Journal named Baldauf as the Europe's most successful female executive. Taking on the top job at Nokia will make Baldauf one of the most high-profile female executives in the telecoms industry globally. Baldauf is the last remaining executive from former chairman and CEO Jorma Ollila's team which in the late 1990s built a Finnish company with a tiny tech unit into the world's biggest cellphone maker.
Pekka Lundmark, who has a long career as CEO of various companies and is chairman of the board of the Confederation of Finnish Industries, is one of the most influential figures in Finnish business. Lundmark is currently President and CEO of Fortum, an energy company based in Espoo, Finland. Prior to Fortum, he served as President and CEO of Kone Cranes
He will not be coming to Nokia for the first time either, since between 1990 and 2000, Lundmark held various senior management positions, including strategy and business development at Nokia Networks. The last two of those years were in California's Silicon Valley. Nokia's current CEO Rajeev Suri will continue to advise Nokia's board until the turn of the year
Under Suri's 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.
Suri will stay on through August 31 to help ensure a smooth transition. And he will continue to serve as an advisor to the Nokia board of directors until January 1, 2021.
The Dell’Oro Group just wrapped up its 2019 reporting period for telecommunications infrastructure programs, finding that the overall telecom equipment market — broadband access, microwave and optical transport, mobile core and radio access network, and service provider router and switch — advanced 2% during 2019, recording a second consecutive year of growth.
Dell’Oro reported the following for full-year 2019 telecom equipment revenue shares relative to 2018 revenue shares — the latter indicated in parenthesis: Huawei 28% (28%); Nokia 16% (17%); Ericsson 14% (14%); ZTE 10% (8%); and Cisco 7% (8%). <<
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- Eric L. - |
