Nokia calls for departing Reckitt CFO to join board

DEPARTING Reckitt Benckiser CFO Liz Doherty is to join the board of Nokia, pending ratification by shareholders at the company's AGM in May.

Doherty will shortly step down as CFO of the makers of Cillit Bang and Finish to be replaced by Adrian Hennah, who joined Reckitt earlier this month as CFO designate.

The consumer goods giant announced Doherty's departure last September after its chief executive Rakesh Kapoor admitted that her way of working was not "well matched" to the business.

Commenting at the time, Investec analyst Martin Deboo suggested that Doherty had "struggled to win acceptance in the investor community" and "suffered" from being appointed before Kapoor's accession to CEO.

Doherty was recruited to the company in February 2011 from Brambles Industries to replace Colin Day. Kapppr was to be promoted eight months later following then chief executive Brad Becht's announcement of retirement after 16 years with the business.

Before her two years at Brambles, Doherty spent more than two decades at Unilever in a variety of roles which mainly concentrated on finance, though some were in the supply function.

Doherty then spent seven years at Tesco, latterly as group international finance director in a role that included responsibility for group tax and treasury.

Ahead of the AGM, Nokia also proposed the re-election of PwC as its external auditor. The Big Four firm recently lost its Schroders audit to KPMG after more than 50 years with the FTSE 100 business.