Business person: Top Management veteran Pekka Rantala (ex-Nokia, ex-Rovio)

The “Business Person” heading tells “Megamind” readers about what stories and facts surround the most prominent IT entrepreneurs from all over the world, the value of companies running which exceeds any reasonable limits. We will not be limited only to the “new wave” of businessmen and we will also tell about those who are called the “old school”.



Today, close-up is Pekka Rantala, the former head of Rovio (developer of the game Angry Birds), a man who has devoted 19 years of his life to Nokia.

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Under the conditions of modern realities, the history of such a long-term relationship between the company's founders and the top manager hired by the company is becoming less common.



Pekka Rantala was born in 1966 and lives in Espoo (Finland). Rantala graduated from the School of Economics in the city of Helsinki. His career and professional development is associated with Nokia. Rantala came there at the age of 28.

Alma Nokia

The Finnish company Nokia was founded in 1865. For one hundred and fifty years of its existence, the company produced electricity, produced paper and gas masks, sold computers and telecommunications equipment for telephone exchanges.



Now Nokia is associated with mobile phones, which the company has been successfully manufacturing since the beginning of the 2000s. From the 2000s to 2011, occupied the largest share of the mobile phone market.







During his time with Rantala, he changed many positions. In 1994, he took the position of Mobile Phone Export Manager. He was responsible for the expansion of the company to Africa, Portugal, Israel and the Baltic States. In 1996, he became Executive Director of the company's mobile division in Austria and Switzerland, and in 1998 Italy was transferred to him.



2000 Rantala began in the new position - Vice President of Nokia Mobile Phones in EMEA. EMEA is an economic region that includes Europe (including Russia), the Middle East and Africa.



In 2003, Pekka Rantala participated in the launch of the N-Gage handheld game console. According to experts, the ecosystem formed around this, together with the game developers, could be considered a prototype of the modern mobile games market.







In 2004, Rantala became Senior Vice President of the new Nokia division - Multimedia Business Group.



Two years later, Pekka Rantala was appointed Senior Vice President of Customer Relations and Marketing. In the same year, 2006, for the first time, he arrived on an official visit to Russia and gave an interview to a local correspondent.



“It is very important to understand that our mobile devices have evolved - they are no longer just mobile phones, but something more that we prefer to call“ multimedia computers ”. I am absolutely sure that it is more important for consumers to purchase a device designed specifically for their local market. Therefore, our main activity in this matter is aimed at informing consumers, ”Rantala said in an interview .



10 years have passed since then and it seems to everyone that mobile devices have "evolved". And then Pekka Rantala was not the last person in this "evolutionary" process.



In the fall of 2013, Nokia announced the sale of its mobile business to Microsoft for 5.44 billion euros. Pekka Rantala was forced to leave the company.

Drinks are stronger, the budget is shorter

Nevertheless, Rantala continued to increase the level of his positions. In October 2013, he became CEO of Hartwall , a company producing alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages.



In January 2014, Hartwall would be forced to lay off 140 workers, and the main reason for this was the decline in demand for beverages and economic instability.



Such phenomena as private import of alcohol from Estonia in unlimited quantities, tax increases and regulation of promotional activities require changes in the company's activities, then Pekka Rantala noted.



He could hardly have foreseen such a turn and the need to take unpopular decisions a few months after joining the company. After that, the new director general did not last long there. In Hartwell, Rantala worked for only 7 months.

Angry Birds: normal flight

“In 2003, Rovio was a very small startup developing mobile games,” Rantala recalls. “The first 6 years were particularly difficult [for the company]. They released more than 50 games, but none had any success. In 2009, the company was on the verge of bankruptcy. ”



Angry Birds appeared on the court of public in December 2009 and was 52 in a row, but the first in importance in the fate of the company. The game, as they say, "took off" and the next 5 years were marked by Angry Birds.







But in December 2014, the Finnish game development company was forced to cut staff. Work lost about 110 people. At that time, 814 people worked in the company.



The former head of the company, Michael Head, explained the unpopular measures by the fact that the growth in the games market was not as big as expected. As noted by the publication VentureBeat, this statement may mean a loss of user interest in Rovio products. In this regard, there is a need to reorganize activities in the departments of games, media and consumer products. “It’s better to make difficult decisions sooner than later,” Head wrote.

In 2013, Rovio's revenue was 156 million euros ($ 197 million), an increase of less than 4 million euros compared to 2012. The net profit of the Finnish company for the year was more than halved to 26.9 million euros. At the same time, most of the revenue was obtained from the sale of toys and other related products.

In August 2014, Pekka Rantala took over as CEO. With 19 years of experience at Nokia, Rantala was well prepared for the new appointment at Rovio.



Mikael Head, meanwhile, went to the company's Board of Directors.



After being appointed as Rovio CEO, Pekka Rantala was also invited to the board of directors - only not Rovio, but JOT Automation Ltd.

JOT is a Finnish company that develops software and hardware systems for testing and automating mobile OS-based systems. The company employs 300 people who work in 9 countries.

New challenges

In August 2015, Rovio Entertainment again reduced about 40% of its employees. Rovio management decided to abandon their plans for work in the field of education. 260 people left the company.

Rovio ended 2015 with an operating loss of 13 million euros ($ 14.7 million) versus a profit of $ 10 million a year earlier. Developer's revenue fell from 158 million to 142 million euros.

“The continuous growth of Rovio and our insatiable desire to look for new opportunities for business development have led to the fact that in recent years we have too much sprayed strength. In our current financial situation, we must focus on what we do best. Namely, to create new exciting games, shoot a spectacular animated film and delight our fans with quality projects, ”Rantala noted, discussing the reasons for the cuts with journalists.







In December 2015, the Finnish company Rovio notified the public about the departure of Pekka Rantala from the post of CEO. His place was taken by Kati Levorant. Prior to that, she was director of legal affairs at the same company.



Rantala worked as CEO for just over a year.



Speaking about his retirement from Rovio, he assured that he did it of his own accord, however, he didn’t call out any specific reasons that pushed him to such a radical decision: “At some point I realized that the moment had come when I had to move away from the usual affairs and move towards the new challenges. "



The premiere of the full-length cartoon Angry Birds Movie is scheduled for May 2016. “Show Angry Birds on the big screen - this is our old dream. I'm so proud of this movie. I can't wait until everyone sees it, ”said Michael Head, chairman of the Rovio Animation Company. The company hopes that the release of the film will help them increase sales.



But the animated film, which Rantala called “spectacular”, will be presented, alas, without his presence.