Mumbai, NFAPost: Nokia, leading telecom equipment maker, appointed Sari Baldauf as Chairwoman. She will succeed Risto Siilasmaa who chaired the Finnish firm for eight years.
The appointment of Baldauf comes at a time telecom industry is going through tech disruptions and business challenges. Even though Baldauf is one of the high-profile female executives in the global telecoms industry, she will have to face the stupendous task to fight back in the 5G race, as rivals Ericsson and Huawei put pressure on its sales and cash reserves.
Outgoing Chief Executive Rajeev Suri, who will hand over to Pekka Lundmark in September, said the company will emerge from the coronavirus crisis stronger than before, and had a strengthened supply chain with 25 factories around the globe.
Single chip
Nokia has been hampered by delays in its system-on-chip (SoC) development – an entire computer system on a single chip which allows the company to cut costs.
Sari Baldauf, 64, rejoined the Nokia board in 2018, having already been a member between 1994 and 2005. She was board member since 2018 and chair since 2020. She was a member the Corporate Governance and Nomination Committee and Technology Committee.
Besides Master of Business Administration, Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration, she holds Bachelor of Science from Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration. She also took Honorary doctorates in Technology (Helsinki University of Technology) and Business Administration (Turku School of Economics and Business Administration and Aalto University School of Business).
Cellphone maker
Sari Baldauf was Executive Vice President and General Manager, Networks Business Group, Nokia, 1998–2005. She also served various executive positions at Nokia in Finland and the United States 1983–1998.
She is the last remaining Executive from former Chairman and CEO Jorma Ollila’s team, which in the late 1990s turned a Finnish company with a tiny tech unit into the world’s biggest cellphone maker.
