Nokia said Jesper Ovesen is to step down as executive chairman of Nokia Solutions and Networks, the group's telecoms infrastructure business, once the sale of the company's devices and services unit to Microsoft has been completed.
The sale of the unit for around €5.44 billion ($7.5 billion) is expected to close in the first quarter of 2014.
Ovesen joined NSN in September 2011, when it was a joint venture between Nokia and Siemens. Since August 2013, NSN has been fully owned by Nokia.
"We thank Jesper for lending the full breadth of his restructuring and change management expertise and for playing a critical part in building a stronger NSN," Nokia Chairman and interim CEO Risto Siilasmaa said in a statement. "NSN has developed into a profitable and leading mobile broadband specialist that is pushing the boundaries of connecting people through LTE and future technologies. We wish Jesper well for the future."
NSN has lately been scoring LTE contract wins the Asia-pacific region and been heavily focused on mobile broadband since it starting on a restructuring in late 2011, which led to thousands of job cuts. NSN has returned to profitability in recent quarters and is still led by CEO Rajeev Suri.
Nokia added that Ovesen will continue to serve in an advisory role for a period after the closing of the Microsoft transaction.
Nokia shareholders approved the sale of the Finnish company's devices and services business to Microsoft after 99 per cent of the votes cast at the extraordinary general meeting in November were in favour of the proposal.
For more:
- see this Nokia release
- see this Reuters article
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