Board wants accelerated process of renewal
Stephen Elop, Nokia’s incoming CEO, has said that Nokia is standing at a moment of “fundamental disruption” that creates challenges, but also great opportunities. Speaking to press on the day his apppointment was announced, Elop said that his role is to identify where the opportunities lie and moved to calm any worries that he would be a cultural mismatch at the company.
“The boom in the number and scope of mobile devices, the advent of cloud computing and delivery of services from the internet, plus the way we are all communicating now – all these elements are conspiring to create a moment of fundamental disruption,” he said. “When that begins to happen you see tremendous opportunities and challenges begin to happen. For Nokia this represents a huge opportunity, and the reason for that is Nokia can take advantage of its many unique strengths and assets.
“My role is to lead this team through this period of change, to take the organisation through this period of disruption and create an environment where those opportunities are properly captured.”
Elop said he would be listening to “all the stakeholders” in Nokia’s business and then take the action necessary to address the new opportunities created by this disruptive moment. That would include “recognising those core elements of success that will continue as critical elements of our strategy”.
He added that he would be moving to “establish a residence” in Helsinki, and added that he has had plenty of exposure to working with Nokia in the past, especially when at Macromedia and putting Flash onto Symbian phones, but also most recently with Microsoft software where he was President of Microsoft’s Business Division.
He also gave a nod to cultural sensitivities of being a non-Finn leading a company that is so important to the country’s financial and cultural capital.
Nokia Chairman Jorma Ollila said that the board had been looking for a CEO since May of ths year, looking for someone who could “accelerate the company’s renewal”. Elop, he said, with his background in software change management and cultural awareness, was that person.