Who Is Justin Hotard? Nokia's CEO Since April 2025

Justin Hotard is Nokia's President and CEO, an engineer who took over in April 2025 after running Intel's data center and AI business. Before Intel he spent nearly a decade at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and he started out at Motorola building mobile networks. Under Hotard, Nokia has regrouped around its network businesses and leaned toward AI and cloud customers.

AI and cloud customers bought about 12% of what Nokia sold in the third quarter of 2026, yet they brought in about 78% of its sales growth from a year earlier. Telecom operators still bought about 71% of the quarter's sales. So the quarter's growth and the bulk of its business came from two different groups of customers.

Justin Hotard at a Glance

Justin Hotard's Career and Background

Justin Hotard trained as an electrical engineer. He holds a bachelor's degree in the subject from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management. From 1996 to 2000 he was a systems engineer at Motorola, deploying mobile networks for US carriers.

From 2003 to 2007 he worked in corporate development and product management at Symbol Technologies, a company Motorola later bought. From 2007 to 2014 he worked at NCR, starting in mergers and acquisitions and finishing as president of its small-business cloud platform.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise hired Hotard in 2015, and he rose to its executive committee. He ran HPE's business in Japan and China from 2019 to 2020.

From 2021 to 2024 Hotard led HPE's high-performance computing, AI and Labs group, which sold supercomputers and AI systems into a build-out that Hock Tan's Broadcom also supplies with chips. In that job, his Nokia profile says, he "delivered the world's first exascale supercomputer for the US Department of Energy."

Exascale means a machine that can do at least a billion billion calculations a second.

Intel was Hotard's last stop before Nokia. He ran its Data Center & AI Group as executive vice president and general manager from 2024, and Nokia's profile credits him with "a significant expansion of Intel's data center and AI business."

Who Is Nokia's Current CEO?

Justin Hotard is Nokia's current CEO, with the title of President and CEO since 1 April 2025. Nokia's Q3 2026 report, published on 22 October 2026, quotes him under that title.

Hotard succeeded Pekka Lundmark, who had led Nokia since 2020 and stepped down on 31 March 2025. Nokia's appointment release said Lundmark would stay on as an adviser to the new CEO until the end of that year.

In the Q3 report Hotard describes the job as simplifying Nokia and pointing it at AI infrastructure. "We are investing where we can differentiate and co-innovate with hyperscalers," he said. Hyperscalers are the giant cloud companies that build and run their own data centers, and Nokia sells them optical and IP networking gear.

Why Did Justin Hotard Leave Intel?

Justin Hotard left Intel to become Nokia's chief executive, a move Nokia announced on 10 February 2025. The release said he led Intel's Data Center & AI Group at the time and would start at Nokia on 1 April.

Neither that release nor his Nokia profile gives a reason for leaving Intel. The release does quote Hotard on why networks matter. "Networks are the backbone that power society and businesses," Hotard said, and they "enable generational technology shifts" like the one under way in AI.

The release ties the timing to Lundmark. Sari Baldauf, then Nokia's chair, said planning began when Lundmark told the board he would consider moving on from executive roles once Nokia's repositioning was further along and the right successor had been found.

A month later, Intel named Lip-Bu Tan as its new CEO, effective 18 March 2025. Neither company's release links Hotard's move to that appointment, and we wouldn't guess at one.

What Has Changed at Nokia Under Hotard?

The most visible change under Hotard is Nokia's shape. Since January 2026 it has reported two main segments, Network Infrastructure and Mobile Infrastructure. Units it no longer sees as core went into a third, Portfolio Businesses, while it decides what to do with them.

For the whole group, third-quarter net sales rose 10% to EUR 5.15 billion, and comparable operating margin improved by 2.2 percentage points. Network Infrastructure grew fastest. Its IP Networks unit sells routers and data center switches, and it grew 43% at constant currency, a measure that strips out exchange-rate moves. Mobile Infrastructure grew 5%, and Nokia said part of that came from revenue pulled forward from the fourth quarter.

Hotard also inherited a deal. Nokia closed its purchase of Infinera at the end of February 2025, a month before he started. Hotard said the integration was "on track" to finish by the end of 2026, "one year ahead of plan with EUR 200 million of net synergies." Synergies are the savings and extra sales a merger is meant to bring.

He also points to AI-RAN. RAN is the radio access network, the part of a mobile network that connects phones to masts, and AI-RAN brings AI computing into it. In the Q3 report Hotard said Nokia completed what it calls the world's first AI-RAN call in a live operator network, with T-Mobile and the chipmaker NVIDIA.

Nokia's shares closed at $5.27 in the session before he started. They closed at $8.48 in early November 2026, about 61% higher. If you're tempted to read that as Hotard's scorecard, remember that a share price answers to markets and rivals as much as to one executive.

How Much of Nokia's Growth Comes From AI and Cloud?

Most of Nokia's growth in the third quarter of 2026 came from AI and cloud customers. Their purchases rose to EUR 631 million from EUR 279 million a year earlier, a gain of EUR 352 million. Group sales grew by EUR 454 million, so AI and cloud brought in about 78% of the increase.

You'll find those rows in the customer breakdown in Nokia's Q3 filing, in reported euros. On that basis AI and cloud sales grew 126%, and the 123% in Nokia's headline is the same growth at constant currency.

Telecom operators are still Nokia's base, and their spending rose about 1% on the year. AI and cloud's share of group sales roughly doubled over the same year, from about 6% to about 12%.

The growth came with thinner margins in the quarter. Network Infrastructure's gross margin slipped to 41.2% from 42.7%, which Nokia put partly on a ramp-up of new products for AI and cloud customers. The company said it expected a recovery in the fourth quarter.

The first nine months of 2026 show nearly the same split, with AI and cloud bringing in a similar share of the growth on about a tenth of sales. Nine months is still a short record, and a customer group that more than doubled in a year can cool as fast as it grew.

We'd credit Nokia's customer mix for that growth. The customer table shows where the growth came from, but it can't show how much of it Hotard steered and how much came from a data center boom he walked into.

What Are the Risks for Nokia?

Five things deserve your attention if you follow the stock.

• Reported profit is much thinner. Comparable operating margin, Nokia's measure before items such as restructuring, was 11.7% in the third quarter. The reported margin after all costs was 3.8%, down 1.6 points, and Nokia put the fall on faster restructuring and integration costs.

• The outlook leans on a big fourth quarter. Nokia kept its 2026 target of EUR 2.1 billion to EUR 2.6 billion in comparable operating profit, and it assumes fourth-quarter net sales rise 20% to 24% on the third. Some Mobile Infrastructure revenue already moved from the fourth quarter into the third, which leaves less for the fourth.

• The AI and cloud buyers could be few and large. Nokia's Q3 report doesn't break its AI and cloud sales down by buyer, so you can't see how concentrated they are. Arista Networks builds switches for AI and cloud data centers, and its 2025 annual report shows two customers took 42% of its revenue.

• Cash is lagging profit. Nokia cut its assumption for free cash flow conversion to 35% to 55%. That's the share of comparable operating profit it expects to turn into cash, and it fell because Nokia is spending more on working capital to secure supply for 2027 and on faster restructuring.

• The shares swing hard. Their highest close of 2026 to early November was $16.85 on 2 June, and the early-November close was about half of that. In a single session on 22 October 2026 they fell about 15%, from $9.25 to $7.88.

How Can You Trade Nokia on Phemex?

Phemex lists a Nokia perpetual, NOK/USDT, which went live in June 2026. A perpetual is a futures contract with no expiry date, and this one is among Phemex's TradFi futures on stocks. NOK here is Nokia's ticker on the New York Stock Exchange, and the Norwegian krone happens to share the code.

Each contract is worth one NOK share and settles in USDT, but you never own the share, so you get no dividend or vote. Leverage goes up to 10x. Futures use leverage, and a leveraged position is closed automatically if losses reach its margin, a forced exit known as liquidation in crypto trading. Funding, a payment between long and short holders, runs every 8 hours.

Nokia's shares trade on the NYSE's weekday schedule. The perpetual quotes around the clock, weekends included, so it can move while the stock can't. On the same early-November day, the shares closed the US session at $8.48 and the perpetual's daily bar closed at 8.63, so you'll often see two different numbers for one day.

Frequently Asked Questions

When did Justin Hotard become Nokia's CEO?

Hotard became Nokia's President and CEO on 1 April 2025. Nokia announced the appointment in February 2025, while he was running Intel's Data Center & AI Group.

What did Justin Hotard do at HPE?

Hotard spent 2015 to 2024 at Hewlett Packard Enterprise. He ran its Japan and China business and then its supercomputing and AI group. Nokia's profile credits him with the world's first exascale supercomputer, built for the US Department of Energy.

Does Nokia still make phones?

No. Phones that carry the Nokia name are licensed products, and Nokia's support site lists them under "Nokia licensed products." Nokia's own 2026 segments sell networks and license its patents.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and is not financial advice. Cryptocurrency trading involves substantial risk. Always do your own research before making investment decisions.