A passion for basketball means Anssi Vanjoki knows the importance of strong rebounding and

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that’s a skill his ailing employer badly needs.

He works for Nokia, the largest phone maker by volume, which this week revamped management and tapped Vanjoki to revive smartphone operations that have struggled to fend off rivals such as Apple.

In 1996 Vanjoki was making history with one of the first cameraphones — a heavy Kodak camera with big cables attached to the first Nokia business phone.

“It was a fantastic experience from a technology point of view, but from the consumer’s point of view it was a fantastically bad experience,” Vanjoki said in a recent speech. He faces a similar dilemma as chief of Nokia’s new main business unit as Nokia phones still compete with rivals technologically, but consumers are fleeing to easier-to-use iPhone and Google phones.

Aside from backing Nokia’s ill-fated push into mobile gaming, Vanjoki has a strong track record at Nokia. He created the brand from scratch in the 1990s

and turned it into one of the biggest names. He was also behind picking the Nokia tune — the world’s most widely used piece of music.

From 2004 Vanjoki lead Nokia’s profitable multimedia business unit and introduced the N-series range of smartphones, which controlled the market well into 2008 when iPhone distribution grew significantly. In 2006 he launched the N95, Nokia’s last hit smartphone, and is still the main speaker at key product launches.

“Great that Vanjoki is back in product charge. His vision, energy and consequence can take it up with anybody! Bring it on,”

tweeted Udo Szabo, a senior executive at Nokia’s services business.

His next challenge are “mobile computers” — he is convinced we will all soon have small computers in our pockets that remain connected, analysing what we do. He also predicted the development of cameraphones that will make professional cameras obsolete.

“I have an opinion, and it’s such a strong opinion, you should take it as a fact,” a former colleague quoted him. Asked once about the merger between Siemens Mobile and BenQ, he said, “Two turkeys don’t make an eagle.”