Long serving Nokia executive Kenneth Oyolla is rumoured to be leaving Nokia East Africa.
Oyolla joined Nokia in 2007 as the Head of Channel & Retail Management (EA) after an 8 year stint at consumer giant Unilever. He rose over the years to the position of General Manager, East and Southern Africa.
His departure would come hot on the heels of former Communications Manager, Dorothy Ooko’s move to Google.
It is unclear at this time whether the rest of the East Africa office will be affected in line with Nokia’s announced re-alignment of operations.
——————————————————————————————————————
*UPDATE*
The Nokia East Africa office is NOT shutting down.
Certain management functions will be decentralised but the office will continue to exist. Nokia will continue to support the East Africa office, its customers & channel partners.
Ken Oyolla has confirmed that he is leaving Nokia EA at the end of the year to take up a position at Nokia in London
M – 24/11/11
——————————————————————————————————————
In the words of CEO Stephen Elop in a press release in September
“We must take painful, yet necessary, steps to align our workforce and operations with our path forward.”
Oyolla is one of only seven regional General Managers in the mobile phone giant, and the only one of African descent.
Oyolla spearheaded Nokias push to rid the East African market of counterfeit devices. The dual SIM Nokia 101 as well as the new Asha 200 range of devices were developed for our market’s unique requirements under his watch.
During his tenure, Nokia reached out to local developers with the sponsorship of the m:lab and various other developer initiatives.
We at the Club wish him the best in his future endeavours.
Atleast he will show up for one last Nokia Happy Hour, the first to be called “Nokia happy hour”, previously “Ovi Happy Hour”.
market perception…this guys are down!!!!
I don’t like the SA connection
Yup! They finally changed the name!