Marketing team continues to grow at Nokia

Nokia is continuing to bolster its marketing team with the appointment of Charmaine Eggberry as its senior vice president of marketing with responsibility for Go-To-Market Operations (GTMO), as the handset manufacturer faces increased pressure from its smartphone rivals.

Eggberry, who joins the company from BlackBerry owner Research in Motion (RIM) will oversee all aspects of marketing development and execution globally.

In addition, she has been tasked with aligning GTMO with other core functions in bringing Nokia devices and services to market.

Eggberry, who was the vice president and managing director, EMEA, at RIM, is the latest appointment by the handset manufacturer to its marketing team, following a board reshuffle.

Last week, Marketing Week revealed that Nokia has promoted its director of global brand management, Steven Overman, to the role of vice president, global head of marketing creation at Nokia.

Other new appointments include Ash Choudhury, who joined as head of digital marketing, Nokia UK & Ireland, from Fiat Group and has previously worked for Xerox and Canon.

Choudry will report to head of marketing at Nokia UK John Nichols, who was appointed in April. Nichols replaced Will Harris, who left to take on the same role in the mobile manufacturer’s South-east Asia and Pacific division.

Harris replaced Loren Shuster, who relocated to the company’s headquarters in Finland to become head of go-to-market operations.

The company has also appointed Craig Hepburn, former ecommerce head at STA Travel, to the newly created role of global head of digital marketing, which oversees its entire digital media activity. Hepburn will also manage Nokia’s media agency roster. He’ll report to Carol Soriano, Nokia’s director of marketing activation.

At RIM, Eggberry had overrall responsibility for RIM’s Europe, Africa and the Middle East business, including its growth targets and all sales and marketing activities. She is also a former global business partner marketing director at Lucent Technologies, and is a board trustee of the Marketing Academy.

Although Nokia is the biggest mobile phone manufacturer, with a 36.4% market share globally in 2009, according to Gartner, it has lost ground in the smartphone market since 2007 with the launch of Apple’s iPhone and various Android devices.