Saturday 15 March 2014

India-born executive may head Nokia: report

After Satya Nadella, it may now be the turn of another Mangalore University graduate to head a Fortune 500 company.

Rajeev Suri, who at present heads Nokia's telecom equipment business, is tipped to become the global chief executive officer of Nokia Corporation.

An announcement elevating Mr Suri may be made by the end of March or April, when software giant Microsoft concludes the acquisition of Nokia's handset business, according to Finnish media reports. After the acquisition, Nokia will be left with the telecom equipment, location-based services and advanced technologies business.

Nokia said its longstanding policy is not to comment on media speculation.

Mr Suri is also an engineering graduate from Mangalore University like Mr Nadella, who took over last month as US-based Microsoft's third CEO after Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer.

If chosen, Mr Suri will join an elite club of Indians heading global firms, which includes PepsiCo chairman Indra Nooyi, Reckitt Benckiser chief executive Rakesh Kapoor, MasterCard president and chief executive Ajay Banga, and Anshu Jain of Deutsche Bank.

Mr Suri, who has headed Nokia Solutions and Networks (NSN) since October 2009, has been credited for "presiding over consistently improving results leading to the successful turnaround and restructuring of the company".

According to his official profile, Mr Suri has a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Electronics and Telecommunications from Mangalore University. He is based in Espoo, Finland. With more than 23 years of international experience, he has worked in strategy and mergers & acquisitions, product marketing, sales, major account leadership, regional and business unit leadership and has lived in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Europe.

Mr Suri joined Nokia in 1995 and headed the Asia Pacific region for NSN in 2007.

In July last year, Nokia agreed to buy German engineering giant Siemens' 50 per cent stake in their mobile broadband joint venture NSN for 1.7 billion euros, or $2.2 billion, after which the firm was renamed Nokia Solutions and Networks.

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