Nokia announced today that Shaun McCarthy has joined the company as president of North America Sales.
McCarthy, who comes from Cisco, will be responsible for leading all aspects of sales across the U.S. and Canada, reporting directly to Nokia Chief Customer Experience Officer Ricky Corker, the company said in a press release.
McCarthy is replacing Ed Cholerton, who is staying with Nokia, but a company spokesperson said his role will be announced later.
McCarthy most recently was vice president of worldwide sales for Cisco’s Mass-Scale Infrastructure Group. While at Cisco, he was instrumental in building the sales team, leading strategic M&A activities and incubating new solutions with lighthouse customers.
He recently posted a farewell message on LinkedIn where he expressed gratitude for his time at Cisco and hinted that news of his next endeavor would be coming this week.
McCarthy, who has more than 20 years of experience in telecom, hyperscale and technology industries, also has served in leadership roles at a number of Silicon Valley companies, including Palo Alto Networks, Brocade and Vyatta.
His mission as president of North America Sales will be to help Nokia’s customers build innovative new revenue generating services, grow existing revenue streams and reduce their costs, the company said.
“It’s an incredibly exciting time to join Nokia. Nokia’s end-to-end networking portfolio is firing on all cylinders, the opportunities to help customers modernize their operations and accelerate growth are plentiful, and the time to close the digital divide is now,” McCarthy said in a statement. “In North America, we need to create ubiquitous access to today’s digital world, and no company is better positioned than Nokia to enable innovative, high speed, reliable, and affordable broadband access across rural and urban communities.”
Nokia has been trying to steer itself around the past several years and in 2020 lost a big North American customer in the form of Verizon.
Nokia said that today, more than 90% of the U.S. population is connected by Nokia network solutions while seven out of 10 fiber homes in the U.S. are connected using Nokia fixed network equipment.
The company’s introduction of McCarthy comes as many of Nokia’s customers are convening this week for MWC Las Vegas 2022. Separately, smaller regional players are gathering in Portland, Oregon, for the Competitive Carriers Association (CCA) annual convention.