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MNB RG: Ollila’s preferred successor was Pekka Ala-Pietilä, not OPK?

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Are you familiar with the name, Pekka Ala-Pietilä? He served as Nokia president from 1999 to 2005 whilst Ollila was CEO. He was the man Ollila had apparently preferred as his successor, but Jorma was not allowed to take part in the interview process. Joni tipped the story below. Pekka Ala-Pietilä is now CEO of Blyk.

According to Helsingin Sanomat, Jorma Ollila’s favourite candidate for
Nokia’s new CEO was Pekka Ala-Pietilä but he refused. Ollila’s role
was to make suggestions of potential candidates but wasn’t allowed to
interview them or take part in the process  Commitee of the Board
interviewed Kallasvuo, Vanjoki, Korhonen, McDowell, Ojanperä and
Öistämö. Kallasvuo was chosen and as the Chairman of the Board of
Nokia Ollila was accepting the proposal.
Board knew that Kallasvuo did not know about software so kai Öistämö
took responsible of all phones.

That was a big mistake.

hs.fi

After OPK was announced CEO, Pekka Ala-Pietilä stepped down for ‘personal reasons’. I can’t say I paid too much attention about CEOs at Nokia during that time. Too busy in school saving up for a 7210 and later 7610. Here’s a story I found on a profile for Pekka Ala-Pietilä

The Nokia board has had in place a succession process in anticipation of Jorma Ollila’s retirement with the objective of maintaining vitality, adapting to a rapidly evolving industry, and ensuring continuity

http://www.forbes.com/2005/09/02/nokia-executives-management-cx_cn_0902autofacescan07.html

I dug around a little bit more, and there’s an article on cellular news saying didn’t want the job as CEO. I wonder why he quit when he wasn’t named CEO. Was he just looking to exit Nokia? He doesn’t have any problem being a CEO since he’s CEO of Blyk. Or maybe like Vanjoki he was expecting to be the new CEO (Vanjoki after OPK)

http://www.cellular-news.com/story/13620.php

Check out that picture above, that was in 2010. Pekka Ala-Pietilä is next to Ollila

http://www.iltalehti.fi/talous/2010091312334856_ta.shtml

Could have been an interesting time if Nokia had been able to ‘adapt rapidly to evolving industry’.  Could PAP have done the job? Imagine it was Vanjoki in  charge. We can’t only speculate how different things may have been.

Cheers Joni and  jiipee for the tip!

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Category: Nokia

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