Angry Birds-Maker Rovio Picks Up A New COO In Nokia Veteran Teemu Suila

Rovio is continuing to cycle in new executive level management with Nokia veteran Teemu Suila taking over as chief operating officer after former COO Harri Koponen stepped down after about two years in the role. Koponen is moving on to do business development for the main investment company behind Rovio, presumably controlled by chairman Kaj Hed, who is the father of CEO Mikael Hed and owns and 70 percent of the company. Koponen isn’t the only longtime senior exec at Rovio to move on in recent months. They also recently brought on a new executive vice president of games in Digital Chocolate’s Jami Laes after Petri J?rvilehto also moved on. J?rvilehto is taking time off. Another Rovio SVP of brand marketing, Ville Heijari, also recently went to gaming monetization network Playhaven. I’ve reached out to Rovio to get more background on the moves. The new COO Suila used to oversee startup activities and corporate strategy at Nokia after working for the Finnish handset maker for almost 20 years ago. That experience working on relationships with startups could help Rovio as it has been quietly scouting for studios to acquire for game development talent. Koponen held the role for about two years as the company scaled up to make $195 million in revenue in the past year and roughly 650 employees throughout Helsinki, Tokyo, Shanghai, Los Angeles and Seoul. Revenue doubled-year-over-year into 2012 with $71 million in net income as the company focused on a heavy merchandising strategy. Games revenue was about 55 percent of the company’s overall in-take last year, but Rovio has been making extra strides in doing more licensing deals with soft drinks and amusement parks. They also recently added Mika Ihamuotila, the CEO of Marimekko, a globally-known design company, to the board.

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