From this perspective, Nokia’s decision to leave Romania could have been anticipated to some degree, considering that Stephen Elop, 47, the Canadian who took over at the helm of the Finnish group a year ago, has worked all his life in the software industry.
Having trained in computer studies and management at a university in his home country (McMaster, Ontario – Canada), he is known in the business world as a pragmatist capable of making decisions quickly. He came to Nokia after running one of the most profitable divisions of software giant Microsoft, its business division, which includes the Office application suite.
“CEOs no longer stay at the helm of a company for longer than 10-15 years, and those who have made it that long – as was the case of Apple’s CEO – are an exception. A CEO is changed when a new strategy is needed in the company. From this perspective, the decision of the new Nokia head, to close down the Romanian plant, was to be expected because, unlike Apple, they had the production division, and the company’s financial progression was not the desired one,” believes Alina Popescu, reward manager within management consultancy Hay Group Romania.
So, Romanian employees in multinationals should look at the professional background and “read into” the messages sent in their speeches by executives such as Meg Whitman (HP), Thomas Fox (Praktiker), Gerhard Roiss (OMV) and Ian Read (Pfizer), some of the executives brought to the helm of global operations of key companies for the Romanian economy.
A company’s employees should be able to tell that a CEO change can be a negative signal for the company when they are not informed about this change.
“Deficient communication means a higher risk of speculations and of a climate of uncertainty setting in in the company,” believes Radu Manolescu, managing partner of executive search company KM Trust & Partners.
(English version by Daniela Stoican)