Nokia has appointed company insider Rajeev Suri as its new chief executive officer. The executive will lead the 149-year-old company as it shifts its focus following the sale of its mobile division to Microsoft for $7.5 billion earlier this month.
The 46-year-old has been with Nokia for more than 20 years and replaces former chief Stephen Elop who returned to Microsoft as part of the handset division sale. He’s pegged as a strong choice according to Hannu Rauhala, an analyst at Pohjola Bank in Helsinki.
True enough, his experience in running Nokia’s network unit for the past four years will certainly be beneficial. Even before taking the helm, he worked in the division and oversaw strategy, mergers and acquisitions, sales and marketing efforts.
With the new job title, Suri will be responsible for looking after the network unit as well as Nokia’s two remaining businesses, a mapping service called Here and Advanced Technologies – the division responsible for managing and licensing the company’s patent portfolio.
In a statement on the matter, Suri said their goal is to optimize the company so that each business is best enabled to meet its goals. Where it makes sense to do so, he said they would pursue shared opportunities between the businesses but not at the expense of focus and discipline in each.
Share value in Nokia shot up nearly eight percent on the news, the largest gain in the past six months.
https://www.techspot.com/news/56579-nokia-names-company-insider-rajeev-suri-as-new-ceo.html
