Good morning.
If you are like me, you probably still think of Nokia as a cell phone company. But in fact, it has been nearly a decade since Nokia sold its phone business to Microsoft, which in turn sold the phone naming rights to HMD. The Finnish company has since turned to B2B telecommunications. And this week, it is launching an effort to remind the world of the change with a new brand image and a keynote address at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
I spoke with CEO Pekka Lundmark shortly after his keynote and asked him why he was making ESG one of the pillars of his company’s refreshed strategy. (You can read Lundmark’s blog post on the new strategy here.) He responded by talking first about the company’s efforts to reduce network power consumption and to develop network software that optimizes power usage. Then he turned to geopolitics:
“We are not a geopolitical actor. But in today’s world, everything we are doing is in one way or another influenced by politics. Our competitiveness is strong, and geopolitics seems to be favoring us. In many parts of the world, the position of Chinese vendors is weakening….We are testing all our business strategies against geopolitics. The megatrends seem to be favoring us. And we see great opportunities to take market share.”
I asked Lundmark if he had considered changing the name of the company, to shake the cell phone taint. His response:
“Never…We believe there is so much heritage and value in the company itself.”
Lundmark made several proud references during our conversation to technology innovation at “Nokia Bell Labs,” which of course were originally part of AT&T before that company was broken into pieces. The fabled New Jersey labs went to Lucent, then to Alcatel, before coming to rest at Nokia.
More news below. And if you are wondering whether you are one of the lucky folks who lives in a market where housing prices haven’t declined in the last year, read Lance Lambert’s analysis here.
Alan Murray
@alansmurray
alan.murray@fortune.com
TOP NEWS
Goldman’s possible sale
At investor day, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon indicated the investment bank may sell parts of its consumer banking business. Solomon acknowledged mistakes in the bank’s unsuccessful entry into consumer banking and said that the bank was exploring “strategic alternatives” for its consumer platforms division, which may include the potential sale of its credit card partnerships with Apple and General Motors, or GreenSky, a lender Goldman bought last year. Financial Times
Glencore pays $700 million
Glencore has been ordered by a U.S. judge to pay $700 million after the mining and commodity trading firm pleaded guilty to bribing foreign officials over a 10-year period. The fine is made up of a $428.5 million penalty and $272 million in forfeiture, and was in line with a plea deal made with federal prosecutors in Manhattan in May 2021. The bribes, which totaled more than $100 million, were paid to officials in Venezuela, Nigeria, Brazil and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in return for business or to avoid audits. Reuters
Bain Capital’s $1.9 billion fund
Bain Capital Ventures has raised $1.9 billion for two new venture funds that target startups of all sizes. The funds will focus on fintech, infrastructure, apps, and commerce technology. This follows the firm’s $560 million crypto-focused fund in 2021. Bloomberg
AROUND THE WATERCOOLER
Move over Ethereum—Bored Ape Yacht Club creator Yuga Labs sets sights on Bitcoin NFTs by Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez
Artificial intelligence is transforming the function of finance—and turning accountants into innovators, according to Microsoft by Georg Glantschnig
Another top lieutenant turns on FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried as Nishad Singh pleads guilty by Leo Schwartz
A De Beers rival is trying to revolutionize how giant diamonds worth millions of dollars are sold—and it’s working by Antony Sguazzin and Bloomberg
Elon Musk is working on a rival to the ‘woke’ A.I. company that he cofounded and left after 3 years, report says by Prarthana Prakash
This edition of CEO Daily was edited by Jackson Fordyce.
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