Helsinki: Nokia Board Chairman Jorma Ollila will stay in his position until spring 2012, helping newly-appointed Chief Executive Stephen Elop's transition into the job, a Finnish newspaper said on Sunday.
Daily Helsingin Sanomat cited Nokia as the source of the information, but gave no further details. Nokia announced the hiring of Elop, a Microsoft executive with a Silicon Valley pedigree, on Friday. The Canadian will replace embattled chief executive Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, as part of Nokia's drive to better compete with Apple.
Ollila has chaired the board since 1999, and as Kallasvuo's predecessor was the key architect of Nokia's rise to become the top mobile phone maker. He said on Friday he would step down "soonest" after helping Elop settle into the job.
Nokia began life as a paper manufacturer in 1865 at a riverside wood pulp mill in southern Finland and gradually grew to make products ranging from toilet paper to tyres to television sets.
In the early 1990s the big change came when Ollila - who headed the cellphone unit from 1990 - became chief executive after a boardroom shakeup and the company switched its focus to telecoms equipment and sold other operations.
In 1998 Nokia overtook US Motorola to become the world's largest mobile handset maker.
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