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Nice read if you’re into corporate history. This article explains how Nokia’s former CEO Jorma Ollila transformed Nokia and how today, current CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo is carrying the torch.
Nokia’s background is marked by reinvention, opportunism, technical expertise and occasional disaster. It has had more comebacks than Elvis, inspiring even the normally dry Martti Haikio, author of a three-volume history of Nokia, to write that the company’s tale was "on the one hand security, clarity and sustainability. On the other hand it encompasses human weaknesses such as inexperience, prejudice and dreams."
Kallasvuo enters a modest meeting room at Nokia’s pristine but somewhat sparse glass, steel and pale-wood headquarters in Espoo, near Helsinki. He prefers not to talk about Nokia’s past, though he has been witness to Nokia’s incredible history during his 25 years at the company.
It might be that while Ollila was on magazine covers, Kallasvuo was the crucial member of the team that created the Nokia of today. In 1993 Kallasvuo had a hand in deciding to break out results from Nokia’s individual business units. This made plain that its mobile phone business was growing rapidly but being dragged down by the group’s other operations.
One fund manager, Laurence Solomon, met Kallasvuo, looked at the numbers, declared them "the biggest thing ever" and bought all the Nokia stock he could. It was a seminal moment.
Source: LA Times
About The Author
Stefan Constantinescu
Stefan Constantinescu (@WhatTheBit on Twitter) has loved technology since as far back as he can remember. It started with computers, but in the past few years his passion has turned to mobile devices. As a mobile phone enthusiast who lives and breathes devices that connect to the internet, he knows he is not alone with this radical fascination of all things wireless. He is strongly opinionated and enjoys a good debate so leave comments in his posts and he’ll get back to you! Stefan began blogging as a hobby in the fall of 2006 and joined IntoMobile in the summer of 2007. Later he got a job at Nokia in March 2008, but as of June 2009 he has rejoined the IntoMobile team. He is currently based out of Helsinki, Finland.
