Board of Directors

The operations of Nokia are managed under the direction of the Board of Directors, within the framework set by the Finnish Limited Liability Companies Act and Nokia’s Articles of Association as well as any complementary rules of procedure as defined by the Board, such as the Corporate Governance Guidelines and the charters of the Board’s committees.

Pursuant to the Articles of Association, Nokia Corporation has a Board of Directors composed of a minimum of seven and a maximum of 12 members. The Board is elected at least annually at each Annual General Meeting with a simple majority of the shareholders’ votes cast at the meeting. The term of a Board member shall begin at the closing of the general meeting at which he or she was elected, or later as resolved by the general meeting, and expire at the closing of the following Annual General Meeting. The Annual General Meeting convenes by June 30 annually.

The Board’s leadership structure consists of a Chair and Vice Chair elected annually by the Board, and confirmed by the independent directors of the Board, from among the Board members upon the recommendation of the Corporate Governance and Nomination Committee. The Chair of the Board has certain specific duties as stipulated by Finnish law and our Corporate Governance Guidelines. The Vice Chair of the Board assumes the duties of the Chair of the Board in the event he or she is prevented from performing his or her duties.

The Board has adopted principles concerning Board diversity, describing our commitment to promoting diverse Board composition and how diversity is embedded into our processes and practices when identifying and proposing new Board candidates as well as re-election of current Board members.

At Nokia, diversity is not a static concept, but rather a relevant mix of required elements for the Board as a whole that evolves with time based on, among other things, the relevant business objectives and future needs of Nokia. Board diversity is treated as a means of improvement and development rather than an end in itself. Diversity of our Board is considered from a number of aspects including, but not limited to, skills and experience, age, nationality, ethnicity, cultural and educational backgrounds, self-declared gender identity, sexual orientation as well as other individual qualities. The Board shall include representatives of more than one gender.

We report annually on our objectives relating to equal representation of genders, the means to achieve them, and the progress we make. We have met our aim to have at least 40% of the Director positions held by members of underrepresented genders.

The Board represents and is accountable to the shareholders of Nokia. While its ultimate statutory accountability is to the shareholders, the Board also takes into account the interests of the Company’s other stakeholders. The Board’s responsibilities are active, not passive, and include the responsibility to evaluate the strategic direction of Nokia, its management policies and the effectiveness of the implementation of such by the management on a regular basis.

It is the responsibility of the members of the Board to act in good faith and with due care, so as to exercise their business judgement on an informed basis, in a manner that they reasonably and honestly believe to be in the best interests of Nokia and its shareholders. In discharging that obligation, the members of the Board must inform themselves of all relevant information reasonably available to them. The Board and each Board Committee also have the power to appoint independent legal, financial or other advisors as they deem necessary. The Company will provide sufficient funding to the Board and to each Committee to exercise their functions and provide compensation for the services of their advisors.

The Board is ultimately responsible for monitoring and reviewing Nokia’s financial reporting process, effectiveness of related control and audit functions and the independence of Nokia’s external auditor, as well as for monitoring the statutory audit of the annual and consolidated financial statements. The Board’s responsibilities also include overseeing the structure and composition of our top management and monitoring legal compliance and the management of risks related to our operations. In doing so, the Board may set annual ranges and/or individual limits for capital expenditures, investments and divestitures and financial and non-financial commitments that may not be exceeded without a separate Board approval.

In risk management policies and processes, the Board’s role includes risk analysis and assessment in connection with financial, strategy and business reviews, updates and decision-making proposals. Risk management policies and processes are integral parts of Board deliberations and risk-related updates are provided to the Board on a recurring basis. For a more detailed description of our risk management policies and processes, refer to “Risk management”.

The Board has the responsibility for appointing and discharging the President and CEO, the Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Legal Officer.

The Board approves and the independent directors of the Board confirm the compensation and terms of employment of the President and CEO, subject to the requirements of Finnish law, upon the recommendation of the Personnel Committee of the Board. The compensation and employment conditions of the other members of the Group Leadership Team are approved by the Personnel Committee upon the recommendation of the President and CEO.

Under our Corporate Governance Guidelines, the Board evaluates Nokia’s environmental and social activities and governance practices (ESG), related risks and target setting as well as their implementation and effectiveness in the company. In 2023, the Board reviewed our sustainability strategy and targets, approved the targets on climate change and diversity included in the short-term incentive program and monitored them and other ESG targets, as well as the evolving ESG requirements and expectations, investor feedback, our disclosure approach, and Nokia’s net zero strategy and roadmap. 

In addition, the Board Committees monitor environmental and social developments and activities in the company in their respective areas of responsibilities. During 2023, the Audit Committee’s responsibilities included the continued implementation planning of new climate- and other sustainability reporting requirements, preparing the proposal for election of the auditor carrying out the assurance of the sustainability reporting, and oversight of the ethics and compliance program and cybersecurity risks and maturity. The Audit Committee also reviews sustainability disclosures annually, as well as the information on the use of conflict minerals in Nokia’s products presented in the annual reports and the related regulatory filings.

The Personnel Committee oversees human capital management, including personnel policies and practices related to Nokia’s culture, physical safety, employee well-being, diversity, recruiting, development and retention. In 2023, the Personnel Committee focused, among other things, on a people risk review, including physical safety and succession planning, as well as preparing Nokia’s Long-Term Incentive Plan 2024–2026. The Committee recommended to the Board to include carbon emission reduction in the metrics of the long-term incentive plan as well as diversity and health and safety as metrics in the short-term incentive plan. The Corporate Governance and Nomination Committee assesses and advises the Board on ESG-related activities and practices, aiming to enhance the governance structure supporting them. The Technology Committee reviews how the Company’s ESG strategy embeds into its technology strategy and roadmaps. 

While the oversight of the security risks and their management, including cybersecurity, is a Board level responsibility in the company, the detailed reviews of the different security domains are allocated to the Board’s different committees. The responsibilities of the Audit Committee include oversight of the IT and services security risks and maturity. The Technology Committee oversees the product and customer security risk management. The oversight of the physical risks belongs to the Personnel Committee. The Committees report to the Board on a regular basis and prepare recommendations to the Board, whenever deemed necessary. In addition, the Board receives regularly updates on cybersecurity.

The current members of our Board of Directors are all non-executive.

All Board members of the current Board composition have been determined to be independent of Nokia and its significant shareholders (no shareholder currently holds 10 percent or more of the shares or votes attached thereto) under the rules of the New York Stock Exchange and the Finnish Corporate Governance Code’s independence criteria and other factors and circumstances taken into account in the overall assessment.

All the current Board members are determined to be independent of the Company’s external auditor.

Further, the Board has determined that all members of the Audit Committee, including its Chair, Carla Smits-Nusteling, are “audit committee financial experts” as defined in the requirements of Item 16A of the annual report on Form 20-F filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”).

All Directors’ positions of trust in other public companies have been disclosed and assessed to be in line with the Corporate Governance Guidelines of Nokia.

The Board of Directors evaluates the independence of its members annually and, in addition to this, on a continuous basis with the assistance of the Nomination and Governance Committee. 

In line with our Corporate Governance Guidelines, the Board conducts a comprehensive annual performance evaluation, which also includes evaluation of the Board Committees’ work, the Board and Committee Chairs and individual Board members. The Board evaluation is conducted as a self-evaluation typically with a detailed questionnaire while an external evaluator is periodically engaged. Feedback is also requested from selected members of management as part of the Board evaluation process. The questions aim to measure and elicit feedback on the processes, structure, accountability, transparency, and effectiveness of the Board and to gain an overview of the issues that are areas of excellence, areas where the Board thinks greater focus is warranted and determining areas where the performance could be enhanced.

Each year, the results of the evaluation are discussed and analyzed by the entire Board and improvement actions are agreed based on such discussions. For further information please refer to our Corporate Governance Statements.