Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN) CEO Simon Beresford-Wylie will step down after two years in the post. He will be replaced by services chief, Rajeev Suri.
Announcing the CEO’s departure, NSN said Beresford-Wylie would “pursue opportunities in a new industry” after 27 years in the telecom network sector. The change in leadership comes as NSN continues to lose market share to rivals Ericsson and Chinese startups Huawei and ZTE.
Suri, 41, will officially take over as CEO on October 1. Beresford-Wylie stay until November 1.
Suri, who has 20 years of experience in the telecom sector, currently heads up the global operations of Nokia Siemens' services business. He was previously the head of the Asia Pacific operations.
Beresford-Wylie joined Nokia in 1998 and headed Nokia's infrastructure group first in Asia-Pacific and then globally. He was appointed CEO when Nokia Siemens began operations in April 2007.
The company is the second largest vendor by market share after Ericsson. However, its share of the carrier equipment market eroded to 20% in the second quarter, down from 26% a year earlier, according to research firm Dell'Oro.
in another setback, NSN lost out to Ericsson in the contest for Nortel’s CDMA and LTE assets, which included key North American customers. It was first to make an offer but in an auction Ericsson paid more than double its initial offer.
In July, Nokia said it expected the mobile infrastructure market overall to decline 10% this year, and said it expects NSN's market share to decline moderately this year. Previously, the company said it expected NSN's market share would be flat this year.
Beresford-Wylie’s departure follows that of Ericsson CEO Carl-Henric Svanberg, who announced in June said he would step down at the end of the year to become chairman of BP. He will be replaced by CFO Hans Vestberg.
For more:
- see this Reutersarticle
- see this release