Nokia names Motley crew member for fixed | Light Reading

23 Dec Nokia names Motley crew member for fixed | Light Reading

New leaders often bring a management refresh but rarely as much upheaval as the latest regime change at Nokia. Including erstwhile CEO Rajeev Suri, seven top executives have now either fallen on their swords or been dismissed from their posts in recent months (the full list is shown below).

For Pekka Lundmark, Nokia’s latest boss, the mission is to reduce the pool of decision makers with seats on the global leadership team to just 11, from the 17 Nokia had under Suri. This cull, it is hoped, will streamline and simplify the business. “Even in a fairly straightforward mobile access deal, there are five members responsible for that deal and that takes a lot of coordination,” Lundmark told analysts last week.

He has now almost finalized the appointments for his executive team. After recently naming new recruit Nishant Batra as the chief strategy and technology officer, the company this week confirmed that Sandra Motley, the president of fixed networks, will lose her seat at the table. While Motley will continue to lead the fixed networks business, her unit will form a part of the new network infrastructure group led by Federico Guilln, already confirmed as one of Lundmark’s 11.

The new gang

With nine other seats now taken, Nokia is still looking for an eleventh member of the team to fill what is likely to be a corporate affairs role. That means Gabriela Styf Sjman and Bhaskar Gorti will probably be excluded.

Sjman’s job of chief strategy officer has effectively disappeared with the appointment of Nishant Batra. She has been in talks about her future at the company, a Nokia spokesperson told Light Reading last week. It is not totally inconceivable she steps into the corporate affairs role.

Table 1: Executive changes at Nokia

Name	Role	Status	On global leadership team?
Rajeev Suri	Ex-CEO	Departed	No
Kristian Pullola	Ex-chief financial officer	Departed	No
Pekka Lundmark	CEO	Confirmed	Yes
Marco Wirn	Chief financial officer	Confirmed	Yes
Nassib Abbou-Khalil	Chief legal officer	Confirmed	Yes
Barry French	Chief marketing officer	Departed	No
Gabriela Styf Sjman	Ex-chief strategy officer	In talks	Uncertain
Marcus Weldon	Ex-chief technology officer	Departed	No
Nishant Batra	Chief strategy and technology officer	Confirmed	Yes
Stephanie Werner-Dietz	Chief human resources officer	Confirmed	Yes
Tommi Uitto	President of mobile networks	Confirmed	Yes
Sandra Motley	President of fixed networks	Named head of fixed networks	No
Rahgav Sahgal	President of Nokia Enterprise	Named head of cloud and network services	Yes
Jenni Lukander	President of Nokia Technologies	Confirmed	Yes
Basil Alwan	Co-president of IP/optical networks	Taking advisory role	No
Sri Reddy	Co-president of IP/optical networks	Taking advisory role	No
Bhaskar Gorti	President of Nokia Software and chief digital officer	Uncertain	Uncertain
Sanjay Goel	President of global services and operations	Departed	No
Ricky Corker	President of customer operations, Americas	Named head of customer experience	Yes
Federico Guilln	President of customer operations, EMEA and APAC	Named head of network infrastructure	Yes

Gorti is in a similar position as Motley. His software business has been rolled into a new cloud and network services unit that will be led by Rahgav Sahgal, until now president of Nokia’s enterprise business. Like Motley, Gorti could settle for a less senior role, but that is by no means certain.

Other members of the global leadership team have not settled, after all. Basil Alwan and Sri Reddy, co-presidents of the high-flying IP and optical networks business, are to step down after their unit is absorbed into Guilln’s network infrastructure one. They will, however, continue to advise Nokia for much of 2021, the company announced this week. “Sri and I are committed to ensuring a smooth and seamless continuation of service for our customers,” said Alwan in a prepared statement.

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Securing the services of two such highly respected industry executives should help to minimize disruption for Nokia as Lundmark kneads it into an entirely different shape. He is flattening out the doughy corporate functions by shifting 14,000 of their employees into his new business groups: mobile, network infrastructure, cloud services and the licensing unit (Nokia Technologies) that will continue as before.

Further job losses seem inevitable as Nokia tries to fatten profit margins that suffered under previous management. Average headcount at the business fell by nearly 4,800 positions last year, to 98,322. “Streamlining” and “simplifying,” words Lundmark used pointedly during last week’s discussion with analysts, are activities that seem likely to affect the entire organization, and not just Nokia’s global leadership team.

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Iain Morris, International Editor, Light Reading