Several senior officials on Nokia Corp.'s group executive board are expected to leave soon as part of a major shake-up being considered by the Finnish cellphone giant's new chief executive, according to a person familiar with the situation.
Exactly who will leave the company remained unclear. Stephen Elop, a Microsoft Corp. veteran who was hired in September to help revive Nokia, is finalizing his plan to revamp the company, which has been losing ground in the lucrative market for smartphones. Mr. Elop is expected to present the plan Friday at an analysts' meeting in London.
Nokia executives won't know their fate until they are briefed on Mr. Elop's blueprint the day before the meeting, the person familiar with the matter added.
The shake-up will likely extend beyond Nokia's group executive board, which is made up of its top 10 executives. Nokia has retained executive recruiters to find a new head of operating systems, as well as a new head of research and development with strong software talent, the person said.
In conducting these searches, Mr. Elop is trying to decide "how much he wants to keep Finnish talent in the leadership team" and how to revamp Nokia's various business units, the person said.
News of the potential shake-up appeared Saturday in a German weekly, which reported that executives including Mary T. McDowell, who is in charge of Nokia's mobile-phones unit, and Niklas Savander, the manager of its markets unit, may be asked to leave the company.
Ms. McDowell declined to comment. Mr. Savander couldn't be reached.
A Nokia spokeswoman said the company doesn't comment on rumors and speculation.
Although Nokia remains the world's largest maker of mobile phones by volume, it has lost market share in smartphones, which are driving the industry's sales and profits, to Apple Inc.'s iPhone and rivals that run Google Inc.'s Android software.
Nokia has clung to its Symbian software, regarded by many in the industry as outdated and unable to compete with Android and Apple's operating system.
A key decision tied to the restructuring is whether Nokia will embrace another operating system besides Symbian.
"They have to come up with something bold" because "Symbian continues to decline," the person said.
Nokia's North American unit badly needs to be strengthened "to take advantage of the North American consumer,'' the person familiar with the matter said. Another person said Nokia began looking for a new North American leader six months ago and narrowed the search to three candidates.
Mr. Elop met with some of the prospects but then "put the whole thing on hold while he figured out the new management structure,'' the second person said.
During a conference call with investors about fourth-quarter earnings, Mr. Elop signaled that he was ready to change Nokia's strategy drastically.
The CEO said the company needed to shift its attitude to that of a "challenger" in the smartphone market.
Since coming on board, he has made modest changes, announcing some job cuts and hiring Jerri DeVard, formerly of Verizon Communications Inc., as the company's first-ever chief marketing officer. Several key executives also have resigned from the company, including Anssi Vanjoki, its smartphone chief, and Ari Jaaksi, who headed up Nokia's MeeGo Computers operations. Jorma Ollila, chairman of Nokia's board of directors, will step down next year, the company has said.
Alberto Torres, executive vice president of MeeGo, remains with Nokia. Henry Tirri heads Nokia's long-term research at the company's research centers world-wide.
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