Mr. Inside's Moment; Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo: In June, this 25-year company veteran takes over Nokia, the mobile-phone giant that everyone else is gunning for.(Cover Story)

Byline: Karen Lowry Miller

It's never easy to follow in the footsteps of a legend. Nobody knows that better than Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, 52, who will become CEO of Finnish mobile-phone giant Nokia in June. Jorma Ollila will step down after 14 years, having crafted a lean technology powerhouse out of a sprawling conglomerate that made everything from rubber boots to televisions to toilet paper. In an interview at Nokia's Helsinki headquarters, downing glasses of water after a morning of tennis and meetings with groups of employees about his new job, Kallasvuo dismisses any effort at comparisons. "You get what you see and you see what you get," he says.

What they are getting is a 25-year Nokia veteran--he remembers the day Ollila joined--who knows the company inside and out. Kallasvuo spent 10 years as chief financial officer before running the mobile-phone division. Described by colleagues as Ollila's right-hand man, he has played a key role as the number cruncher on the core management team since Nokia reinvented itself in the early 1990s. He's now taking the helm at an equally crucial time. The company was caught off guard in 2004 by the surge in popularity of the three C's of cell-phone design: color screens, cameras and the clamshell form. According to Strategy Analytics in London, Nokia's global market share slipped from a peak of 36 percent in the second quarter of 2003 to 29 percent a year later, and has since bounced back to 32 percent.

Nokia may be back on its feet, and still dominates the market, but it faces new threats. Competition is ruthless, with Asian rivals such as Samsung and LG Electronics now coming on strong in the high end and Motorola moving into the low end. "Pretty much everybody is gunning for Nokia," says Neil Mawston, a researcher with Strategy Analytics. At the same time, there is a danger that consumers will find it harder to distinguish between brands as phones become more like a commodity. To beat these risks, Kallasvuo wants to put less emphasis on Nokia as a superior technology company and focus more on products that are simple and easy to use. "Not every phone has to be a Swiss Army knife," he says, but should offer the best tech for the price without overwhelming users with too many functions.

Kallasvuo, president since October, wants to focus on bolstering the appeal of the Nokia name. The company is already ranked sixth in an annual Interbrand survey of global brand value, just behind Intel and ahead of Disney. But, he told a group of stock analysts in early December, "our ambitions are very high. We aim to be the most loved and admired brand in the world." A former marketing chief from Coca-Cola now runs brand marketing and reports directly to Kallasvuo.

Upon taking over the mobile-phone division in 2004, Kallasvuo launched a global study of consumer behavior, interviewing thousands of people in 16 countries to amass some 6 billion data points. Researchers identified 12 consumer segments, from "career builders" to "style seekers." They plan to target those groups with four product categories, tentatively named Modernity, Design/ Style, Easy/Reliable and Rational. "Form and function are no longer enough: we need to tell a story with each product," he says. Nokia also ...