Rajeev Suri new President and CEO of Nokia

The Finnish company, Nokia after successfully completed transfer of its handset business to software giant Microsoft, the company named Indian born Rajeev Suri as its new President and CEO of the company. The appointment of Rajeev Suri as President and Chief Executive Officer, effective May 1.

Suri joined Nokia in 1995 and has held a wide range of leadership positions in the company. Since October of 2009, he has served as CEO of NSN, the former joint venture between Nokia and Siemens that is now fully owned by Nokia. During his tenure as CEO, that business went through a radical transformation to become one of the leaders in the telecommunications infrastructure industry.

"As Nokia opens this new chapter, the Nokia Board and I are confident that Rajeev is the right person to lead the company forward," said Risto Siilasmaa, Chairman of the Nokia Board of Directors. "He has a proven ability to create strategic clarity, drive innovation and growth, ensure disciplined execution, and deliver results. We believe that his passion for technology will help ensure that Nokia continues to deliver innovations that have a positive impact on people's lives."

Siilasmaa, who has also been serving as an interim CEO, will return to focusing exclusively on his role as Chairman of Nokia's Board of Directors as of May 1, 2014.

Nokia will adopt a simple and clear operational governance model, designed to facilitate innovation and growth. As of May 1, 2014, all three businesses will report to the Nokia President and CEO, who has full accountability for the performance of the company. HERE and Technologies each will have a single leader reporting to the President and CEO.

To ensure efficiency and simplicity, the Nokia President and CEO will assume direct control of the Networks business and key Networks leaders will report to him.

The primary operative decision-making body for the company will be the Nokia Group Leadership Team, which will be responsible for Group level matters, including the company strategy and overall business portfolio.

Effective May 1 2014, the Nokia Group Leadership Team will replace the current Nokia Leadership Team, and the President and CEO will chair the Group Leadership Team.

With this, the company teams are Timo Ihamuotila as Executive Vice President and Group Chief Financial Officer. Michael Halbherr as CEO of HERE.Henry Tirri as Executive Vice President, and acting Head of Technologies. Samih Elhage as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial and Operating Officer of Networks.

On the other hand, the current Nokia Leadership Team will be disbanded. On April 25, 2014, Stephen Elop, Jo Harlow, Juha Putkiranta, Timo Toikkanen, and Chris Weber stepped down from the Nokia Leadership Team and transferred to Microsoft.

In addition, Louise Pentland, Juha Äkräs and Kai Öistämö will step down from the Nokia Leadership Team effective May 1, 2014 and leave the company to pursue opportunities outside of Nokia. Pentland, Äkräs and Öistämö will continue to serve Nokia in an advisory role during a transition period. Of the current Nokia Leadership Team members, Timo Ihamuotila, Michael Halbherr and Henry Tirri will continue as members of the Group Leadership Team, as mentioned above.

With these leaders leaving the company, Nokia announces the appointment of Hans-Jürgen Bill as Executive Vice President of Human Resources, Barry French as Executive Vice President of Marketing and Corporate Affairs, and Maria Varsellona as Executive Vice President and Chief Legal Officer, effective May 1, 2014.

"Nokia has a strong and proven team of leaders," said Rajeev Suri. "We intend to move fast to further refine our execution plan, build the right company culture, and institute the necessary operational governance and performance management systems."

Effective May 1, the interim governance structure of Nokia will cease to exist. Risto Siilasmaa, who has been serving as an interim CEO since September 3, 2013, will focus exclusively on his role as the Chairman of the Nokia Board of Directors. In addition, Timo Ihamuotila will step down from the interim President position.

After reshuffled in management, the company also announced the new strategy and planed for future.

Nokia believes that over the next 10 years billions of connected devices will converge into intelligent and programmable systems that will have the potential to improve lives in a vast number of areas: time and availability, transportation and resource consumption, learning and work, health and wellness, and many more.

"I am honored to have been asked to take this role, and excited about the possibilities that lie in our future," said Rajeev Suri.

He further added, "Nokia, with its deep experience in connecting people and its three strong businesses, is well-positioned to tap new opportunities during this time of technological change. I look forward to working with the entire Nokia team as we embark on this exciting journey."

"This new world of technology will require connectivity capable of handling massive numbers of devices and exponential increases in data traffic; location services that seamlessly bridge between the real and virtual worlds; and innovation, including in sensing, radio and low power technologies. Nokia's vision is to be a leader over the long term in these three areas," the company aid in a statement.

"Nokia's strategy is to develop its three businesses in order to realize its vision of being a technology leader in a connected world and, in turn, create long-term shareholder value," said Rajeev Suri.

"Our goal is to optimize the company so that each business is best enabled to meet its goals. Where it makes sense to do so, we will pursue shared opportunities between the businesses, but not at the expense of focus and discipline in each," said Suri.

Nokia will target the creation of long-term shareholder value by focusing on its Networks business (formerly Nokia Solutions and Networks, or NSN),.

For this, "Nokia will invest in the innovative products and services needed by telecoms operators to manage the increase in wireless data traffic which is more than doubling every year. Future investment will focus on further building on our strong position in mobile broadband and related services, and strengthening our leadership position in next-generation network technologies," as per the its statement.

"Today, the Networks business serves more than 90 of the world's 100 largest operators, is a leader in the large and dynamic mobile broadband market, and is ranked third in estimated global market share in mobile radio and second in telecommunication services. An early leader in virtualization and cloud technologies, Networks conducted trials and pre-commercial live projects with more than 50 customers in 2013," it said.

"Customers of our Networks business can have confidence that we will continue to make the investments necessary to deliver the innovation needed to help them build even stronger businesses," said Suri.

"Through its HERE business, Nokia will invest to further develop its location cloud to make it the leading source of location intelligence and experiences across many different operating systems, platforms and screens," it said.

In the mean time, "Given that location is an essential element of a connected world, we will target our investment in three areas like technology for smart, connected cars; cloud-based services for personal mobility and location intelligence, including for the growing segment of wearables and special purpose devices; and location-based analytics for better business decisions," a release said.

"Our view is that only one other company has location services that come close to the depth and breadth of those from HERE - and HERE has the advantage of being independent from any operating system or single business model," said Suri.

"Nokia's continuing businesses invested more than EUR 2.5 billion in research and development in 2013. We believe that the company has a strong financial position and the capacity to continue to make the investments necessary to remain an innovation leader in the three segments in which it competes," a statement said.

"We are committed to effective deployment of capital to drive future value creation," said Timo Ihamuotila, who is currently Nokia's Chief Financial Officer and who has been appointed to serve as the Group Chief Financial Officer as of May 1, 2014.

"We believe our planned comprehensive EUR 5 billion capital structure optimization program enables Nokia to make quick and orderly progress towards a more efficient capital structure, and is aligned with the long-term interests of our customers and shareholders. Together with our continued focus on solid business execution, these capital structure enhancements support our longer-term target to return to an investment grade credit rating, which would further affirm our long-term competitive strength and support our strategic objectives," said Ihamuotila.

Lastly, consistent with the planned structural changes announced today, Networks (formerly Nokia Solutions and Networks, or NSN) and Technologies will operate under the Nokia brand. HERE will retain its distinct identity within the Nokia family and, where appropriate, will be identified as "A Nokia Company". The NSN name will no longer be used after a short phase-out period. For financial reporting purposes, Nokia will have four reportable segments: Mobile Broadband and Global Services within Networks, HERE, and Technologies.