Stephen Elop was born on 31 December 1963 and is a Canadian businessman who most recently worked at Australian telecom company Telstra from April 2016.
42 Facts About Stephen Elop
2.
Stephen Elop is best known for his ill-fated tenure as Nokia CEO from 2010 to 2014, which included controversies such as the "burning platform" memo and the company's partnership with Microsoft, resulting in the move to Windows Phone software exclusivity.
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Stephen Elop was criticised for some of his decisions, which resulted in the company suffering massive losses both financially and in market share.
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Stephen Elop was born in Ancaster, Ontario, Canada, as the second of three children in a family.
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Stephen Elop's mother was a chemist and his father was an engineer at Westinghouse Electric Corporation.
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Stephen Elop's grandfather was a wireless operator who used morse code from ships in both the First World War and Second World War.
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Stephen Elop was influenced by and learned much about technology from his grandfather.
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From 1981, Stephen Elop studied computer engineering and management at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario.
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Stephen Elop graduated second in his class with a bachelor's degree in 1986.
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At Macromedia, Stephen Elop was nicknamed "The General" due to his military-style haircut.
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Stephen Elop was then president of worldwide field operations at Adobe, tendering his resignation in June 2006 and leaving on 5 December.
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Stephen Elop was paid a $500,000 salary with $315,000 bonus and $1.88 million severance package during his time at Adobe.
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In late 2007 Stephen Elop was approached by Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer, with whom he met several times including chairman Bill Gates.
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Stephen Elop named this his toughest professional moment in a Bloomberg interview.
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Stephen Elop's spell at Microsoft started on 11 January 2008, as the head of the Business Division, responsible for the Microsoft Office and Microsoft Dynamics line of products, and as a member of the company's senior leadership team.
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Stephen Elop was effectively leading the largest division of the world's largest software company.
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Stephen Elop became known as an operator and a change agent because of successes at Microsoft.
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Businessweek credited Stephen Elop with pushing Microsoft to develop cloud-based versions of the company's programs, and asserted that this helped Microsoft maintain its dominance, while holding off startups looking to disrupt its traditional business model.
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On 10 September 2010, it was announced that Stephen Elop would take Nokia's CEO position, replacing the disposed Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, and becoming the first non-Finnish director in Nokia's history.
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On his first day of work as CEO, Stephen Elop e-mailed every Nokia employee asking what changes they like to see at Nokia and what they do not.
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Stephen Elop was open to the employees and gave them the chance to voice their opinions - unusual for Nokia under the bureaucratic predecessors and chairman.
22.
Sometime in early 2011, Stephen Elop issued a company internal memo titled "Burning Platform" which was leaked to the press.
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Stephen Elop stresses in the memo how significantly the market has changed:.
24.
On 11 February 2011 in a press conference in London, Stephen Elop officially announced the new strategy for Nokia, which involved a "strategic partnership" with Microsoft and shifting its smartphone strategy to Microsoft's Windows Phone, whilst gradually phasing out their in-house Symbian and MeeGo operating systems.
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However Stephen Elop stuck with the Microsoft deal, saying that MeeGo development will not continue even with the N9's success, a move that was widely criticised.
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Stephen Elop justified Windows Phone as giving Nokia a chance to market itself as an alternative to Apple and Samsung.
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In 2011, Stephen Elop announced that some 11,000 employees would have to be laid off as part of a plan to "restructure" Nokia's business, and in June 2012 it was announced that further 10,000 layoffs were in order and that several facilities would have to be closed down due to budget cuts.
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Stephen Elop denied the accusations again in an interview in 2014.
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In May 2013, after the two years that he had been granted for the transition to the Windows Phone platform, Stephen Elop was pressed by Nokia's shareholders about the lack of results compared to the competitors and the insufficient sales figures to secure the company's survival.
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Stephen Elop replied that there was no turning back on his decision of adopting Windows Phone, while some analysts criticized Stephen Elop for closing doors to alternative strategies and going all-in with Microsoft's operating system.
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On 3 September 2013, it was announced that Microsoft had agreed to buy Nokia's mobile phone and devices business for 5.4 billion euros and that Stephen Elop would stand down as Nokia's CEO to become Executive Vice President of the Microsoft Devices Group business unit.
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Shortly before his departure from Nokia, Stephen Elop had filed for divorce, which he cited as a reason to reject a renegotiation of the controversial bonus.
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Stephen Elop claimed he couldn't afford a reduction of the payoff because his wife would demand half of it.
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In 2014, Stephen Elop returned to Microsoft as executive vice president of the Microsoft Devices Group.
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On 17 June 2015, Stephen Elop was laid off from his position at Microsoft as part of massive job cuts in the Microsoft Devices Group.
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On 16 March 2016, Australia's largest telecommunications provider Telstra announced that Stephen Elop would be joining the company in a newly created position as Group Executive Technology, Innovation and Strategy.
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Stephen Elop said that Telstra was needing a necessary transformation to become more of a technology company.
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Stephen Elop was dismissed from Telstra as part of its restructuring on 31 July 2018.
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On 17 September 2019, APiJET, a Seattle-based joint venture of Aviation Partners, Inc and iJet Technologies which makes real-time aircraft data analytics, announced that Stephen Elop had been named its CEO.
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Stephen Elop is a fan of the Vancouver Canucks ice hockey team.
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Stephen Elop was married to Nancy from Wyoming, Ontario who he first met when studying at McMaster.
42.
Stephen Elop listed for sale his US$5 million mansion in Redmond, Washington, US, which he purchased in 2008 and lived in with his family.