Nokia Networks has appointed telecom industry veteran Ashish Chowdhary as its Chief Business Officer from January 1, 2015. Chowdhary is currently based in New Delhi and is EVP Asia, Middle East & Africa (AMEA) for the Finnish company. In the new role Chowdhary will move to Espoo in Finland where he will lead customer operations. He will report to Nokia President and CEO, Rajeev Suri who was earlier heading the networks business. Suri was elevated recently to lead Nokia's overall business after the handset unit was sold to Microsoft.
Chowdhary joined Nokia in December 2003 as Country Head, India, Nokia Networks. Under his leadership, the company, then known as Nokia Siemens Networks, had become the top ranking telecoms equipment vendor in India. Prior to joining Nokia, he was with Hughes Network Systems.
Born in 1965, he holds an undergraduate degree in Mathematics from Delhi University, a Masters Degree in Computer Science from Emory University and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
In the current role he has been responsible for all sales and operations in the region representing more than half of the revenue of Nokia Networks’ global business. He will continue to lead AMEA until the end of the year.
“Ashish has proven his talent and demonstrated strong execution in building customer relationships and delivering on our promises,” said Rajeev Suri, Nokia President and CEO. “Given his experience, having led both Customer Operations and Global Services, he is the ideal candidate to develop our worldwide customer facing organization to suit the global market in which we operate.”
In the past four years, Chowdhary led customer operations in the diverse regions of Asia Pacific, Japan, India, Greater China, and Middle East and Africa. Prior to this, Chowdhary headed the Global Services business.