Simo Vuorilehto
 Simo Vuorilehto    (businessman) | ||||||||||||||
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| Born | August 8, 1930 Savonlinna, Finland | |||||||||||||
| Nationality | Finnish | |||||||||||||
| Member of | European Round Table of Industrialists | |||||||||||||
CEO of Nokia before it hit off with mobile phones
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Simo Sakari Vuorilehto is a Finnish mining consultant and former CEO of Nokia, at a time when it was a corporation dabbling in many sectors. At Nokia, he served as second-in-command in the 1980s, and after the death of Kari Kairamo in 1988, he rose to CEO for four years before retiring.
He was a member of the European Round Table of Industrialists from 1989 to 1992.
Career in the crisis company Nokia
Simo Vuorilehto is perceived as a very different leader than his predecessor, Kari Kairamo. Kairamo is considered an old-generation industrial leader who did not believe in the rise of consumer electronics. The Finnish state had sold a majority stake in Teva to Nokia in the 1980s. Nokia under Kairamo had also left behind a management crisis.
However, after Nokia hit the brink of crisis in the late 1980s, Vuorilehto embarked on an extensive restructuring program, which resulted in Nokia exiting the rubber industry, televisions and computers.
Nokia's board of directors faced severe controversy in the late 1980s: Antti Lagerroos and Jacques Noels, vice president of consumer electronics, did not share a common vision for the company's future as a result of a sharp fall in Nokia's stock price and a decline in the television industry. A dispute arose between Antti Lagerroos and Vuorilehto, who was CEO.
However, Vuorilehto did not gain the trust of his subordinates and the company's Supervisory Board. Vuorilehto was later replaced in 1992 by Jorma Ollila when he retired at the age of 61.
Vuorilehto is one of Finland's highest-income pensioners. His pension in 2010 was € 28,538 per month.[1]
