Nokia Naming Former Networks Boss Sari Baldauf as Board ChairNokia Naming Former Networks Boss Sari Baldauf as Board Chair

Risto Siilasmaa is stepping down as Nokia's board chair; he's spent 12 years on the company's board, with eight of those years as chair.

His successor, Sari Baldauf, will take the big chair in April at the company's annual meeting. Baldauf served as EVP and GM of Nokia's Networks business group from 1998 to 2005.

Siilasmaa puts a nice coat of paint on his tenure. "During my time as Board Chair, we have repositioned Nokia as a world-leading network technology business, with a strong basis for the future," Siilasmaa's quoted as saying in the press release. "This has included some fundamental strategic steps, including the sale of the Nokia mobile devices business to Microsoft, taking full ownership of the NSN telecom infrastructure business, and the acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent."

Even with all those wins under Siilasmaa's belt, Nokia's shareholders are losing faith; the company's market capitalization has fallen by nearly $10 billion since late September.

"While we know that Nokia is facing some short-term challenges as the [5G] technology matures, I am confident that we have the right actions underway to address those issues. Many parts of Nokia are performing well, and we are delivering on our strategy to diversify into enterprise markets and build our software business," Siilasmaa continued in the release.

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— Phil Harvey, US Bureau Chief, Light Reading