Meet Rajeev Suri – As He Takes On The Reigns of Nokia
The Legend has fallen, sounds like a Transformers title, but in Nokia’s case it’s true.
After an indomitable hegemony in the mobile phones market for more than a decade, the company sold its mobile phone division to Microsoft corporation in a $7.2 billion takeover. The takeover happened because of continued losses during the last 3 years, so much so that the company was forced to sell their headquarters and lease the premises. Now the company has decided to put strong efforts in hopes for a turnaround. It has decided to concentrate on its Network, Softwares and Maps divisions. Nokia also has a huge patents division which might help it reclaim its lost throne, unfortunately though they don’t have any dragons.
For this task they have recruited the Indian born, Singaporean Citizen Rajeev Suri as Nokia’s CEO. In the past couple of years, Suri was responsible for the turnaround of Nokia’s main telecoms network business. He took his chair on the 1st of May replacing their Ex-CEO Stephen Elop who is directly blamed for Nokia Mobile’s demise.
Rajeev Suri did his graduation in Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering from Manipal Institute of Technology, India (class of 1989). This school’s other famous alumni includes Microsoft’s present CEO, Satya Nadella. This must be a proud moment for the institution’s history.
Mr. Suri who joined Nokia in 1995, previously headed the networks division and it proved to be profitable for the company under his leadership. He has extensive experience in the fields of strategy, mergers & acquisitions, product marketing, sales, major account leadership, regional and business unit leadership and has lived all across the northern hemisphere except the America.
Suri also stands apart from the others because he is one of the rare few to reach such great career heights without an MBA or PG degree under his belt. So if your parents are pressuring you to get another diploma in higher education, you now know whose example you should quote.
He is definitely going to face some challenges as the CEO. Even though Nokia’s networks division accounted for about 90 percent of sales from the group’s continuing businesses last year, it faces tough challenges from companies who still have deep pockets in game like Ericson and Huawei. Also he will have to take some tough decisions to bring down the debt by 2 billion.
The entire world will have their eye on this guy to see if he can recreate the magic he showcased as the head of the networks division. We at iGyaan, wish him the best and hope he will be the savior that Nokia desperately needs.
