HELSINKI, Finland-Nokia Corp. said it will open a New York office next year and reassign some of its top management staff to the city.
Chief Financial Officer Rick Simonson and Mary McDowell, the head of its enterprise solutions unit, will be the principal officers to be assigned to the city. The decision is in deference to New York as the financial hub of the world.
The office will open in mid-2004, said the company, and it hopes to have between 100 and 150 staff there in two years.
The decision also underlines the importance of the United States in Nokia’s business, not only in selling its GSM/GPRS phones, but also the ramp-up in its CDMA handhelds. Speculation has been high that high taxes in Finland and the challenges in hiring foreigners may push the company to move its headquarters to the United States.
