Nokia’s head of mobile business resigns

Posted by Michael Bond on 15th Sep 10

Nokia, one of the world’s largest mobile phone companies, is to lose its head of mobile business, Anssi Vanjoki. The announcement that Mr Vanjoki has handed in his resignation comes just days after Nokia confirmed that Stephen Elop, from Microsoft, will be taking over as the company’s chief executive. Mr Elop is the first non-Finn ever to be given the top job at Nokia.

In a statement, Mr Vanjoki confirmed he wanted to seek new opportunities and that he was fully committed to working as hard as he possibly could for the company until his final day. Mr Vanjoki took the job as head of mobile solutions in July and will serve a notice period of six months.

When he took the job, Mr Vanjoki wrote in a blog that his aim was to make sure Nokia remained an intellectual and market leader in the digital world. He added that he realised it would not be an easy task and that he was under no illusions.

Although still a big seller of smartphones, Nokia has found itself losing market share to the incredibly popular iPhone as well as the Android operating system created by Google. Mr Vanjoki planned to base his strategy around MeeGo and the Symbian operating system. He said, when he was appointed to the role, he had been preparing for the job for the past 20 years.

When Mr Vanjoki leaves Nokia, along with outgoing CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, some analysts believe the company will go through further management changes.