Nokia poaches HPE exec to drive enterprise IoT

Nokia's HQ with dark clouds above
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Nokia has reshuffled its enterprise offering with the appointment of an ex-HPE executive to its head of global enterprise verticals.

In addition to hiring HPE's former VP of EMEA storage, Chris Johnson, Nokia also promoted Mike Calabrese to head of its webscale and large enterprise division.

Johnson spent more than seven years at HPE (and HP before the company was split) in senior leadership positions such as vice president of the company's EMEA storage division and then managing director of the entire MEMA region.

He will now look to apply this expertise to bring mission-critical communications technology to transportation, energy, public sector organisations and other Enterprise customer segments, driving sales and business strategy across Nokia's key markets.

"Nokia’s expertise in mission- and business-critical communications networks has propelled the company into a leadership position in areas as diverse as private LTE networks for the mining industry, GSM-R and IP/MPLS technology for railways and packet microwave technology for power utilities," Johnson said.

"Our innovative technology and usage-case approach enable us to bring carrier-grade critical communications capabilities to a range of vertical industries that demand the utmost in reliability, resiliency and security to support their operations.”

As head of webscale and large enterprise at Nokia, Calabrese will now be responsible for developing the company's business and sales strategy for web companies, cloud service providers and large enterprises around the world.

Before joining Nokia, Calabrese worked in a number of sales and solutions positions at Alcatel-Lucent which was acquired by the Finnish telecommunications business in 2016.

"Webscale companies handle staggering volumes of business - whether that is measured in transactions, web pages, or data - and also have to accommodate huge variability in demand across applications, geographies, and events," Calabrese said.

"This requires a software-driven networking approach that features carrier-grade reliability. Many large enterprise customers such as those in finance, healthcare and manufacturing have similar requirements, and Nokia’s high-performance, critical communications technology meets their needs.”

Clare Hopping
Freelance writer

Clare is the founder of Blue Cactus Digital, a digital marketing company that helps ethical and sustainability-focused businesses grow their customer base.

Prior to becoming a marketer, Clare was a journalist, working at a range of mobile device-focused outlets including Know Your Mobile before moving into freelance life.

As a freelance writer, she drew on her expertise in mobility to write features and guides for ITPro, as well as regularly writing news stories on a wide range of topics.