(bright music)
-: Risto, thank you very much for joining us today.
You became chairman in May, 2012
and one could call that the low point
in the very long history of Nokia.
Very difficult time.
Could you describe why you decided to accept
that challenging position
and what was Nokia like at that point in time?
-: We were planning the biggest layoffs
in the company's 150-year history,
while revenues declined by 26% in the quarter
when I was appointed chairman.
Our net losses or operating losses were over 2 billion
during the first six months of that year.
And I could continue that long list of sort of dark tidings,
but we understood the challenge.
And again, at that time,
I decided to do things differently.
-: How did you change the leadership
and board practices of Nokia
in this very difficult time?
-: I set, laid out golden rules for our board work.
Of course, discuss those with the board members
and we approve them together after,
making some changes to my original proposal.
But I'll mention three rules out of seven.
The first one was assume the best of intentions from others.
We want to be honest about bad news.
One of my favorite sayings is that bad news is good news,
good news is no news, and no news is bad news.
The second thing was that we'll be a data-driven board
and we'll work harder
than normal boards or average boards do.
And the third rule out of the seven that I want to mention
is one where we determine that any meeting
where we don't laugh out loud is a complete failure.
So we need to have fun,
especially when we deal with the most difficult
and most emotional decisions, like, for us,
the selling of the handset business to Microsoft.
-: Why did you decide to center the current Nokia
on the networks business instead of the devices business
which used to be the focal point?
-: Deciding to focus on networking
was not a decision to focus
on the sort of the old definition of networking,
but a decision to focus
on what we call the programmable world
where we program the environment we live in.
And much of that programming will be done through AI,
sort of configuring the environment
where we live in real time
based on the data and the analysis that is gathered
through the billions of sensors that will be surrounding us.
-: Now, since May, 2012, when you started as the chairman,
Nokia's enterprise value has grown
by approximately 20 times.
There were many external moves during that period.
What were the internal moves
that haven't really been visible outside
that made this transformation work?
-: If you take the point of view
of looking at our employee base,
currently we have 106,000 employees,
but over 99% of them did not carry a Nokia badge
just three years ago.
So it's not about internal moves.
It has been a complete removal of engines,
the cabin, and the wings in mid-flight of an airplane
and reassembling the airplane to look very different
while in mid-flight.
-: How have you been able to preserve Nokia as Nokia
even though everybody has essentially changed their jobs?
-: It's almost as if the company really has a soul
and the soul is there regardless of what I do,
and I have really felt
that the soul survived this operation.
-: What advice would you have for other leaders
who are undergoing a major transformation
such as the one you went through?
-: Well, I'd say the number one thing
is that don't believe all the advice that you get.
Think for yourself: what makes sense?
Number two probably would be a paranoid optimist.
It's a good way to navigate through hard times.
Number three would be gather great people around you
and change people in the team very quickly if you need to.
-: Risto, thank you very much for speaking with us today.
-: Thank you.