Nokia's head of smartphones to step down

Nokia announced on Monday that its head of smartphones will be stepping down from the position after just a little over two months in the new role.

Anssi Vanjoki, head of mobile solutions at Nokia, has resigned from his job leading the company's smartphone division, but will work out his notice period of another six months, continuing "in his current tasks for the time being," Nokia said in a statement.

Anssi Vanjoki has been in his role at Nokia for a little over two months, but will serve a six month notice period. Photo credit: Nokia

"I felt the time has come to seek new opportunities in my life," Anssi Vanjoki said in the statement. "At the same time, I am 100 percent committed to doing my best for Nokia until my very last working day."

The announcement follows Vanjoki's recent appointment to head of mobile solutions which he noted by writing a company blog post on the Nokia Conversations webpage on 2 July.

In his post titled "The fightback starts now", Vanjoki wrote of the hard work needed to solidify Nokia's smartphone position. "I am committed, perhaps even obsessed, with getting Nokia back to being number one in high-end devices. Achieving this will require performance and efforts over and above the norm," he said. "This is a role I've personally been preparing for over the last 20 years," Vanjoki added.

"My assumption is that he was one of the internal candidates for CEO who was passed over, so now his position isn't tenable," Nick Jones, vice president and Gartner analyst, told ZDNet UK in an email about Vanjoki's decision to step down. "I expect there will be other changes in the senior exec team, as Steve Elop makes his presence felt. There might also be other internal CEO candidates who feel it's time to leave also."

On 9 September, Nokia announced that Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo will be leaving his position as chief executive of the Finnish company on 20 September. He will be replaced by Stephen Elop, former president of Microsoft's businesses division.