The Finnish telecom and technology giant has announced the appointment of Kristen Pressner as Chief People Officer (CPO) and member of the Group Leadership Team, effective May 1, 2026. Pressner joins Nokia from Roche Holding Group, where she served as Global Head of People & Culture for Roche Diagnostics, leading major organizational and cultural transformations across the company’s global operations.
With more than three decades of international HR and talent management experience, Pressner brings a proven track record of aligning workforce strategies with innovation and business growth—a skill set increasingly critical as Nokia repositions itself at the intersection of AI, cloud, and advanced connectivity.
A People-First Strategy for the AI Supercycle
The appointment comes at a pivotal moment for Nokia, as the company accelerates its shift toward AI-empowered networks and next-generation communications. CEO Justin Hotard, who took the helm earlier in 2025, has made culture and accountability central to Nokia’s transformation plan.
“Kristen brings a wealth of experience in driving transformation through business,” Hotard said. “She will lead our cultural evolution toward an AI-empowered, united team, focused on delivering for our customers and seizing the opportunities the AI supercycle is creating for advanced and trusted connectivity.”
In short, Pressner’s remit is about more than HR—it’s about engineering a culture fit for the future of tech. Nokia’s success in the AI-driven networking space depends on agile teams capable of innovating at the speed of digital transformation, and her role will be to architect the systems and culture that make that possible.
From Roche to Nokia: Bringing Science-Driven Transformation to Tech
Pressner’s background at Roche, a global leader in life sciences, may seem worlds apart from telecom—but her experience in driving people and culture evolution in complex, innovation-driven environments is directly transferable.
At Roche, she helped the company rethink leadership models, foster inclusivity, and embed a culture of continuous learning—initiatives that echo Nokia’s own ambition to build an empowered, high-performance organization. Before Roche, her time at Texas Instruments gave her deep roots in the global technology sector, where she led HR initiatives aimed at bridging culture and capability transformation.
Her cross-industry insight could prove vital as Nokia navigates an industry landscape where AI is redefining not just technology—but the skills, structures, and mindsets required to compete.
A Cultural Reset for a New Chapter
For Nokia, the appointment signals a deepening investment in talent and culture as strategic levers in its ongoing business turnaround. Under Hotard’s leadership, the company has been repositioning itself to lead in AI-native networks, expanding its software and cloud capabilities while tightening operational focus.
Pressner, who will be based in Finland and report directly to Hotard, framed her new role as an opportunity to help Nokia “unleash the creativity, courage, and collaboration of its teams around the world.”
“Nokia’s success depends on the creativity, courage, and collaboration of its teams,” Pressner said. “As a global technology leader with a remarkable heritage and a bold future, Nokia is poised to shape the next chapter of connectivity, and I can’t wait to be part of that journey.”
Her emphasis on “courage” and “collaboration” hints at a renewed human focus within Nokia’s technological reinvention—a recognition that innovation depends as much on empowered people as on advanced infrastructure.
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