Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo (born 13 July 1953) chaired the committee for
World Design Capital The World Design Capital (WDC) is a city promotion project by the World Design Organization (formerly named the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design )to recognize and award accomplishments made by cities around the world in the fi ...
Helsinki 2012, and is the former Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President of
Nokia, as well as a former board member of
Nokia Siemens Networks.
Career
Prior to joining Nokia, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo held a variety of positions with the former
Union Bank of Finland
Nordea Bank Abp, commonly referred to as Nordea, is a European financial services group operating in northern Europe and based in Helsinki, Finland. The name is a blend of the words "Nordic" and "idea". The bank is the result of the successive ...
.
Kallasvuo's involvement with
Nokia began in 1980 when he was appointed as Corporate Counsel. In 1987 he was appointed Assistant Vice President, Legal Department, and in 1988 he was named Assistant Vice President, Finance. In 1990 he was promoted to Senior Vice President, Finance. From 1990 onward Kallasvuo was a member of the Group Executive Board of Nokia.
In 1992, Kallasvuo was named Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. In 1997-1998 he served as Corporate Executive Vice President, Nokia United States, during which period he held overall responsibility for Nokia's business operations in the US. In early 1999, he returned to the position of Chief Financial Officer, the position he had held prior to moving to the United States. From 2004-2005 Kallasvuo was Executive Vice President and General Manager of Mobile Phones. On 1 October 2005 he was named President and COO. He then replaced
Jorma Ollila and served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Nokia Corporation from 1 June 2006 until he was fired from his post on 11 September 2010. Chairman Ollila said the "time is right" for a new leader with different skills. His successor was
Stephen Elop
Stephen Elop (born 31 December 1963) is a Canadian businessman who most recently worked at Australian telecom company Telstra from April 2016. In the past he had worked for Nokia as its first non-Finnish CEO and later as Executive Vice President ...
who began 10 days later. Kallasvuo continued to chair the board for
Nokia Siemens Networks.
During Kallasvuo's term as CEO, Nokia's share of the smartphone market fell from 48% in 2006 to 31% by his departure in late 2010 (according to
Financial Times figures - ). During this period, Nokia's management failed to respond to the rapidly changing environment of the smartphone and wider mobile market, with the lack of platform and UI development contributing to the decline. The slow pace of development and weak support of the company's own
Maemo OS
Maemo is a software platform originally developed by Nokia, now developed by the community, for smartphones and Internet tablets. The platform comprises both the Maemo operating system and SDK. Maemo played a key role in Nokia's strategy to c ...
, subsequently known as
Meego and featured on the
N900 and N9 handsets, left the company with no platform to compete with
Apple's iPhone or
Google's
Android
Android may refer to:
Science and technology
* Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human
* Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system
** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...
platforms, with key partner
Intel abandoning the Meego project in 2011 shortly after Kallasvuo's departure from Nokia. Kallasvuo's successor, Elop, turned to the
Windows Phone platform with little commercial success and Nokia fell from the world's largest mobile manufacturer to a minor brand with less than 3% of the smartphone market when its
mobile phone division was bought out by
Microsoft in mid 2014.
In addition to his duties for Nokia he served as Director of
EMC Corporation from August 2004 to 23 January 2009.
On 26 January 2012 the
TeliaSonera committee proposed that Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo be elected as a new member of the TeliaSonera's board of directors.
In January 2013, it was announced that Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo was the new Chairman of the board for Zenterio AB, a Swedish TV software company. Zenterio AB declared bankruptcy in July 2019 and in February 2020, Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo was sued in court for the amount of 44 million Swedish crowns for his actions as Chairman of Zenterio.
Education
Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo holds a master's degree in law (
LL.M.
A Master of Laws (M.L. or LL.M.; Latin: ' or ') is an advanced postgraduate academic degree, pursued by those either holding an undergraduate academic law degree, a professional law degree, or an undergraduate degree in a related subject. In mos ...
) from the
University of Helsinki.
Personal life
Kallasvuo was born in
Lavia,
Finland. He is married to Ursula Ranin, a lawyer formerly working for Nokia. From his previous marriage to
Anita Kallasvuo
Anita or ANITA may refer to:
Arts
* ''Anita'' (1967 film), an Indian film
* ''Anita'' (2009 film), an Argentine film
* ''Anita'' (2021 film), a Hong Kong film
*'' Anita: Swedish Nymphet'', a 1973 erotic film
People
*Anita (given name), people w ...
he has two adult children; Jussi and Anu Kallasvuo.
Sources
KALLASVUO Olli-PekkaInternational Who's Who. accessed September 4, 2006.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kallasvuo, Olli-Pekka
1953 births
Living people
Nokia people
University of Helsinki alumni
Chief operating officers
Finnish chief executives
Chief financial officers