The founding CEO of Nokia Siemens Networks has resigned and will be replaced by another long-term Nokia executive as the two-year-old company battles it out in a consolidating carrier-infrastructure industry.
Simon Beresford-Wylie was named CEO of the company in 2007 when it was formed out of the network equipment businesses of Sweden’s Nokia and Germany’s Siemens. He will be succeeded by Rajeev Suri, who currently leads the services business of Nokia Siemens, the company said Tuesday. Suri will take the reins of the company on Oct. 1. Beresford-Wylie will leave his seat on the Nokia Group Executive Board on Sept. 30 but stay to support Suri through a transition period ending Nov. 1.
Nokia Siemens, which makes both wired and wireless network equipment for service providers, is in a highly competitive market that includes better-positioned vendors such as Ericsson and Huawei.
Nokia Siemens Networks recently offered to acquire the carrier wireless assets of Nortel Networks Corp. but was outbid in an auction by LM Ericsson of Sweden, which offered to pay US$1.13 billion.
Suri, 41, managed Nokia’s cellular transmission portfolio in its early days and has also led the company’s Asia-Pacific business. He is an Indian citizen and has been based in locations including India, Finland, the U.K., West Africa and Singapore. As CEO, he will be based at Nokia Siemens headquarters in Espoo, Finland, also the hometown of Nokia.
Beresford-Wylie joined Nokia in 1998 and took over its infrastructure business in 2005, then was a driving force behind the formation of Nokia Siemens, which launched on April 1, 2007.
