Finnish Newspaper Reports That American Investors Forced Nokia To Hire Stephen Elop

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On September 21, 2010, former Microsoft executive Stephen Elop became the first non-Finnish CEO of Nokia in the entire 145-year history of the company. Is this a sign that Nokia is changing with the times? Maybe not. A Finnish newspaper has reported that the decision to go with Elop was forced on Nokia’s board by a group of American investors.

Shortly after former CEO Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo was deposed in favor of Elop, Nokia’s smartphone chief Anssi Vanjoki also announced he was leaving the company. Now, if Finnish newspaper Kauppalehti is to be believed, his departure may came after he was not picked at CEO. According to the newspaper report, the Nokia board’s first choice was Vanjoki, who had worked at Nokia for some 20 years. But, as mentioned, American investors (unnamed by the report) pressured the board into going with Elop. Elop, ironically, is a Canadian – but did have a long career at Microsoft.

Tech blog SlashGear ran this story, then chatted with a Nokia PR rep who denied the allegations. They said that Elop was chosen for the CEO role out of three candidates, and he was chosen on his merits – not because of outside influences. The rep also acknowledged how unfortunate it is that this report came out just before Nokia’s financial earnings are set to come out. Hmmm – somebody trying to use the newspaper to short the stock?

Not sure how it’s done in Finland – but major newspapers are usually required to have more than one source confirm a story before they can run with it (tech blogs, obviously, are exempt from this – which why you get inane stories like “Samsung charges for Android updates”). It’s possible that Nokia is lying and this IS how the CEO change went down – but the fact that it was timed to coincide with the earnings results is very suspicious.