Earlier this year, Finnish telecommunications equipment supplier Nokia cancelled the group’s chief information officer as Ursula Soritsch-Renier to facilitate restructuring. The former CIO said she is currently exploring new opportunities, with the chief digital officer Bhaskar Gorti took over her role.

For Nokia, this is a critical moment. Nokia has been investing heavily in 5G wireless technology and may benefit from the US’s distrust of Chinese rival Huawei. Gorti, who confirmed the move, said that combining the two roles will make it easier to roll out new cloud-native services to Nokia’s 100,000 employees, a key to making the business sell electronics since the 1960s. He added, “There is a direct link between the success of internal digitalization and the customers seeing its benefits.”

Concerns about Huawei’s security have led to increased US interest in alternative suppliers. US Attorney General William Barr recently called on the United States to hold a controlling stake in two European companies to counter Huawei’s expansion efforts, although Vice President Mike Pence quickly denied the idea.

Nokia, led by CEO Rajeev Suri, has had a difficult year. The stock price plummeted in October 2019, when Nokia was aggressively investing to compete with Huawei and other competitors while suspending dividends. Nokia has won a number of large 5G commercial contracts (66 to date and 19 have been established) and has included among its customers the largest telecommunications companies in the United States, Japan and many other countries. However, it has not yet achieved a significant share price rise from the success of 5G and is still struggling to cut costs.

Nokia Chief Digital Officer and Software President Bhaskar Gorti

HaBhaskar Gorti joined Nokia in 2016 and is no stranger to IT positions. Prior to that, Gorti was the group’s chief information officer and president of Nokia Software. Gorti, 53, has driven Nokia’s $ 3 billion software business growth, which accounts for about 12% of the company’s net sales, and provides cloud-based services and network security for businesses such as revenue management.

HaBhaskar Gorti said that expanding the position will not decentralize Nokia’s software development. He said that the change will make the company’s expertise in areas such as digital operations and network security more accessible and benefit the entire company. Nokia shareholders will hope that his efforts will make 2020 better than the previous year. Nokia’s fourth-quarter 2019 results did exceed analysts’ expectations, and net profit doubled year-on-year, but there are signs that the speed of 5G rollout may be slowing, which could adversely affect them.

Huawei was accused of blackmail and theft of trade secrets by U.S. prosecutors last week. If more countries choose to avoid Huawei, Nokia may benefit from it. When asked about the security issues surrounding the Chinese company and its impact on the company’s business, Gorti declined to comment, saying that such geopolitical issues are best left to the government. Gorti once again declined to comment on the idea of a US government-backed investor strategy to hold Nokia shares.  He smiled and said, “Hey, you know we are a public company and we welcome all investors.”