Stephen Elop

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Stephen Elop
Stephen elop.jpg
Born (1963-12-31) 31 December 1963 (age 49)
Ancaster, Ontario, Canada
Occupation President & CEO, Nokia Corporation

Stephen Elop (born 31 December 1963) is the chief executive officer of Nokia Corporation. A Canadian citizen, Elop is the first non-Finn to be named CEO of Nokia. He replaced Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo in this position on September 21, 2010.[1][2]

Contents

Personal life [edit]

Elop was born in Ancaster, Ontario, Canada.[3] In his spare time, he is an avid recreational pilot. He is married to Nancy Elop, with whom he has five children, four girls and a boy, including triplets.[4]

Education [edit]

From 1981, Elop studied computer engineering and management at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, graduating second in his class with a bachelor's degree in 1986. Stephen helped lay 22 kilometers of Ethernet cable around campus to create one of the first Internet networks in Canada.[5][6]

Career [edit]

Elop was a director of consulting for Lotus Development Corporation before becoming CIO for Boston Chicken in 1992,[7][8] which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1998.[9] In the same year, he joined Macromedia's Web/IT department[8] and worked at the company for seven years,[10] where he held several senior positions, including CEO from January 2005[11] for three months before their acquisition by Adobe Systems was announced in April 2005.[4][12]

He was then president of worldwide field operations at Adobe, tendering his resignation in June 2006 and leaving in December,[13] after which he was the COO of Juniper Networks for exactly one year from January 2007-2008.[8][14]

Before starting at Nokia, Elop worked for Microsoft from January 2008 to September 2010 as the head of the Business Division, responsible for the Microsoft Office line of products, and as a member of the company's senior leadership team. During his time at Microsoft, the Business Division released Office 2010.[15]

Nokia announced on March 11, 2011 that it had paid Elop a $6 million signing bonus, “compensation for lost income from his prior employer," on top of his $1.4 million annual salary.[16]

"Burning Platform" and Windows Phone [edit]

Shortly after joining Nokia, Elop issued a company internal memo titled “Burning Platform”,[17] that was immediately leaked to the press. The memo likened the 2010 situation of Nokia in the smartphone market to a person standing on a burning oil platform (in software, "platform" is used to refer to frameworks such as Symbian, Apple iOS and Google Android.)

Media reception was mixed. Some have since remarked that the memo was a wake-up call for Nokia (“It is one of the most combustible and gripping documents ever to emerge from a major corporation.” (BBC)[18] and “With its elegant writing style and brutal honesty, the 1,200-word missive is far removed from the average management pep talk.” (Financial Times)[19]). The memo has also even been referenced as a guide for other business and political leaders.[20] However, mobile commenter Tomi Ahonen has called it "the costliest management memo ever written".[21]

In February 2011, Elop announced a new strategy for Nokia, which included the discontinuation of both of their in-house mobile operating systems, shifting its smartphone strategy to Microsoft's Windows Phone. The phase-out of Symbian was to be carried out during the following years, expecting it to be finalized by 2016, and plans for any MeeGo devices beyond the Nokia N9 were scrapped. The Nokia N9 was released during this transition, to wide acclaim. The first Nokia Windows Phone smartphones shipped in November 2011 in the form of a device whose design was made to be virtually identical to the N9, the Nokia Lumia 800.

Some technology writers have criticised Elop for the decision to move away from Symbian and MeeGo platforms to Windows Phone[22] and bad timing in communicating this decision (a.k.a. Osborne effect).[23] Elop himself later admitted to some damaging effects of his memo.[24] Ahonen also argues that as a result of the memo and Elop's communication, "Nokia is doing the most rapid death in the shortest period of time ever, for a global market leader Fortune 500 sized company. Ever."[25]

References [edit]

  1. ^ "Nokian Kallasvuo sai potkut, seuraaja Microsoftilta". Helsingin Sanomat (in Finnish). September 10, 2010. Retrieved 10.9.2010.  Unknown parameter |julkaisu= ignored (help)
  2. ^ "Nokian toimitusjohtaja vaihtuu". Kauppalehti (in Finnish). September 10, 2010. Retrieved 10.9.2010. 
  3. ^ "Bio: Stephen Elop". Bloomberg Businessweek. June 25, 2009. Retrieved 10 September 2010. 
  4. ^ a b ""Kenraali" Elop astuu Nokian johtoon". Helsingin Sanomat (in Finnish). September 10, 2010. Retrieved 10.9.2010. 
  5. ^ "Stephen Elop's profile". LinkedIn. Retrieved 10 September 2010. 
  6. ^ "Stephen Elop's Nokia Adventure". Business Week. June 2, 2011. Retrieved 2011-06-02. 
  7. ^ "Stephen Elop's profile on LinkedIn". Retrieved 2012-01-30. 
  8. ^ a b c "Who is Microsoft's new business division leader, Stephen Elop?". ComputerWorld. January 11, 2008. Retrieved 2011-20-17. 
  9. ^ "A Chicken Autopsy". Fool.com. 1998-10-07. 
  10. ^ "Stephen Elop". CrunchBase. n.d. Retrieved 2011-02-17. 
  11. ^ "MACROMEDIA NAMES STEPHEN ELOP CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER; ROB BURGESS CONTINUES AS CHAIRMAN". Macromedia. January 19, 2005. Retrieved 2011-02-17. 
  12. ^ "How will Stephen Elop fare at Microsoft?". ComputerWorld. January 11, 2008. Retrieved 2011-02-17. 
  13. ^ "Adobe Announces Resignation of President, Worldwide Field Operations". Adobe Systems. June 15, 2006. Retrieved 2012-01-30. 
  14. ^ "Microsoft beware: Stephen Elop is a flight risk". SiliconBeat. January 11, 2008. Retrieved 2011-02-17. 
  15. ^ "Microsoft's big gamble with free Office". April 1, 2010. Retrieved 2011-21-11. 
  16. ^ "Nokia pays big bucks for Elop: Former Microsoft executive receives $6M signing bonus". GeekWire. March 11, 2011. Retrieved 2011-03-11. 
  17. ^ Elop, Stephen (2011-09-02). "Full Text: Nokia CEO Stephen Elop’s ‘Burning Platform’ Memo". TechEurope (The Wall Street Journal). Retrieved 2011-09-28. 
  18. ^ "Nokia's burning platform". February 9, 2011. Retrieved 2011-21-11. 
  19. ^ "Nokia chief gambles on honesty". February 9, 2011. Retrieved 2011-21-11. 
  20. ^ "Read Cisco CEO’s Mea Culpa: "No Excuses"". April 5, 2011. Retrieved 2011-21-11. 
  21. ^ "Calculating the Elop Effect: He's already destroyed a company the size of Oracle, and profits the size of Google". 2011-12-21. Retrieved 2012-07-14. 
  22. ^ Brockmeier, Joe (2011-09-08). "The 5 Worst CEOs in Tech". ReadWrite Enterprise. Retrieved 2011-09-28. 
  23. ^ Ahonen, Tomi T. (2011-08-11). "Coining Term: "Elop Effect" when you combine Osborne Effect and Ratner Effect". Communities Dominate Brands. Retrieved 2011-09-28. 
  24. ^ "My Nokia Blog: What was said at the Nokia AGM (Annual General Meeting)". 2011-05-04. Retrieved 2012-10-30. 
  25. ^ "The Sun Tzu of Nokisoftian Microkia - Mirror mirror on the wall, who'se the baddest of them all - Waterloo, I was defeated you won the war - a long trek blog in search of the worst CEO ever". 2011-07-06. Retrieved 2012-07-14. 

External links [edit]

Business positions
Preceded by
Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo		 Nokia Corporation CEO
2010–		 Succeeded by
None
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