Arto Nummela, HMD Global's Chief Executive Officer has resigned with immediate effect. The announcement comes at a critical juncture when the company is trying to revive the Nokia brand with the launch of Android smartphones. Florian Seiche, the President of HMD Global will take over additional responsibility as acting CEO.
Arto Nummela has been the face of HMD Global since it announced the plan to relaunch Nokia-branded smartphones. He has also been a longtime veteran at Nokia before it was acquired by Microsoft in 2014. "Arto Nummela has played a key role in the creation of the HMD Global operation, building the team and launching our first products. On behalf of the whole Board, I thank Arto for his contribution and wish him well in his future endeavours," Sam Chin, Chairman of the Board, HMD Global Oy said in a statement.
Arto Nummela announced the launch of HMD Global's first three Nokia-branded Android smartphones at MWC in February. He spoke about Nokia 3, Nokia 5 and Nokia 6 as the first phase of its comeback plan and charted an interesting product lineup coming up in the second half of 2017. Under Nummela's leadership, HMD Global resurrected the Nokia 3310 feature phone and introduced a few more feature phones for the emerging markets.
Nummela's exit comes at a time when the company is reportedly planning to debut its first flagship smartphone. The rumour mill suggests that HMD Global will launch flagship the Nokia 8 smartphone on July 31 to take on the likes of Samsung and Apple. Nokia 8 product page went live for a brief period and it is expected to sport a Quad HD display, Zeiss dual camera setup and Snapdragon 835 chipset. The phone was also leaked in all its glory a few days back. HMD Global has not revealed the reason for Nummela's exit but cited that it is a personal matter for both Arto and the board. It needs to be seen whether this executive shakeup hurts the business which has been gaining a lot of traction among consumers and retailers globally.