Joerg Erlemeier promoted to COO job and post on Nokia Group Leadership Team
As it continues to refine its leadership structure, Nokia has promoted Joerg Erlemeier to the post of chief operating officer; he’s immediately taking over from Monika Maurer who is leaving the company.
Erlemeier, previously senior vice president, Nokia Transformation, will also join Nokia’s Group Leadership Team, which comprises CEO, CFO, president of IP/Optical Networks, president of applications and analytics, president of fixed networks, president of global services, president of mobile networks, president of Nokia Technologies, chief customer operations officer, chief human resources officer, chief strategy officer, chief marketing officer, chief legal officer and the president of Nokia Bell Labs.
CEO Rajeev Suri said in a statement: “I want to thank Monika for her contributions to Nokia, and Alcatel-Lucent before that. I warmly welcome Joerg to the GLT, and look forward to working together to further strengthen our disciplined operating model.”
Since bolstering its product portfolio and market position with the acquisition of Alcatel Lucent, Nokia has undergone a number of leadership transitions that largely speak to growing its ability to address its core operator business as well as enablement of all manner of enterprise stakeholders looking to leverage connectivity to increase efficiencies and business value.
To that enterprise-focus point, Nokia recently hired Chris Johnson, formerly of HPE and EMC, as the new head of global enterprise verticals. In an interview with our sister site Enterprise IoT Insights, Johnson highlighted three major drivers influencing the enterprise space. “Most organizations will be taking advantage of public cloud in some way, shape or form. The second part of the landscape is we have a belief that customers will, for the foreseeable future, be running their own private data centers or private clouds. The third element is what’s happening at the edge of the customer’s businesses. This is kind of where the digital disruption is happening.”
He said major areas of enterprise focus as energy, transportation, public safety, smart cities and manufacturing.
In the energy space, Nokia recently cut a deal with Kansas City Power and Light to deploy a microwave network to bolster the transmission and distribution grid with an eye on improving reliability. KCP&L is using packet microwave solutions, integrated with legacy systems, to create a converged network that will simplify operations and improve the network’s future-readiness. By the end of the year, 40 sites will be live, with 29 more sites planned in 2018.
“Nokia understands the needs of power utilities like KCP&L, and has dedicated a great deal of effort to ensuring that our packet microwave technology can meet the requirements today, while preparing networks for the introduction of even more advanced technologies in the future,” Kamal Ballout, head of the Global Energy Segment, said.
