• Nokia is forming two new units and adding the heads of those organisations to its management team
• The vendor has appointed a former Intel AI and datacentre executive to head up its Technology and AI Organization
• Its Corporate Development Organization will be headed up by a former HPE exec
• Both new executives have worked previously with Nokia CEO Justin Hotard

In a revamp of its corporate structure, Nokia is creating two new corporate units that will come into being on 1 October: Technology and AI Organization (TAO), which will be headed up by former Intel AI and datacentre executive Pallavi Mahajan; and Corporate Development Organization (CDO), to be led by former HPE executive Konstanty Owczarek. 

Mahajan and Owczarek, both of whom have previously worked with Nokia CEO Justin Hotard in their previous tech sector roles, will also join Nokia’s leadership team. 

Mahajan’s most recent position at Intel – where she worked for just over three years – was as corporate VP and general manager at Intel’s datacentre and AI group (April 2024 - August 2025). In that role, she worked closely with Justin Hotard, the current CEO at Nokia who, prior to joining the Finnish vendor earlier this year, was head of Intel’s datacentre and AI group. 

According to Nokia, Mahajan, who also held the role of corporate VP and general manager at Intel’s network and edge group, led the chip giant’s “innovation at the intersection of networking, mobility, cloud, edge and AI”.

Mahajan has also held senior roles at HPE – one of which was from January 2020 to June 2022, when Hotard was also at the tech giant – and at Juniper Networks, where she worked for more than 16 years, ending her time there as VP of engineering and, according to Nokia, leading the vendor’s work on automated networking. (Juniper Networks, of course, is now part of HPE following the completion of the pair’s $14bn M&A deal in July.)

Now she will be reunited with Hotard as she heads up the TAO unit, which

will comprise the vendor’s ‘technology and AI leadership’ and ‘group security’ operations, as well as Nokia Bell Labs, the vendor’s New Jersey-based innovation hub.   

Hotard noted: “To succeed in the AI supercycle, we need to focus on where we can drive differentiation through our core technologies, strengthen our capabilities in security and AI, and maximise the value of partnerships in our ecosystem. Having a dedicated technology and AI organisation will be an important asset for us and our customers.”

The CEO continued: “I am delighted to welcome Pallavi [Mahajan] to Nokia. She is recognised for her rare combination of deep technical expertise, commercial acumen and proven ability to scale multibillion-dollar product portfolios at the intersection of AI, mobile and edge computing.”

Owczarek’s CDO unit, meanwhile, will be responsible for corporate development, strategic partnerships, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), incubation activities and NGP Capital, Nokia’s wholly owned venture capital operation. 

Owczarek already has one foot in the door at Nokia as he has been a strategic advisor to Hotard since April this year.    

His CV also includes a stint at HPE where he was chief strategy and operations officer of the vendor’s High Performance Compute (HPC), AI & Labs business from August 2022 to April 2024. Hotard was head of that business while Owczarek was there. 

Prior to HPE, Owczarek was head of strategy and innovation for AIG’s Life and Retirement business.  

“The new Corporate Development Organization will accelerate our strategy evolution and execution, and support our businesses,” noted Hotard, who added that he is “excited to welcome Konstanty [Owczarek] to Nokia. He brings with him a unique combination of expertise, spanning strategy, corporate development and finance across a variety of industries.”

The appointments come as Nokia funnels more of its efforts and resources towards its Network Infrastructure division (optical, routing, fixed broadband) as datacentre infrastructure, and associated data transport networks, offer greater potential for sales and profit growth than the vendor’s Mobile Networks division. 

While he gave a positive spin on the future of the vendor’s mobile infrastructure business during Nokia’s second-quarter earnings call in July, the CEO also noted at the time that the increased focus on the Network Infrastructure division is being driven by the shifting demands of the customer base, where there are now specific demands related to Ethernet switching speeds and optical technology, such as pluggables for inside the datacentre. “The innovation curve has shifted. So, by default, our R&D has to be invested in those areas. And if you look at the hyperscalers and public cloud, they set an expectation for security [and] for ease of use and deployment of technology and performance. So there’s a number of areas where we’re targeting those customers” – see Nokia’s CEO conjures up a positive spin on Mobile Networks division.

As part of the operational and management team refresh, Nokia has also announced the departure of chief strategy and technology officer Nishant Batra, who will leave Nokia on 30 September. 

- Ray Le Maistre, Editorial Director, TelecomTV