Ericsson announced that it will move the position of chief HR officer to Sweden and that Bina Chaurasia, based in California, therefore will resign from her role as SVP and chief HR officer, effective 15 November. Maj-Britt Arfert will temporarily act as chief HR officer while the search for a successor is underway. The role was based in California since 2014. The position will be moved to Stockholm to be close to the CEO and the majority of the executive leadership team due to the heavy transformation work currently needed in Ericsson, the company said.
Newspaper Svenska Dagbladet’s business section, SvD Naringsliv, said in its web edition that the move comes some time after it had reported bonuses running into millions of kronor as well as working difficulties. SvD had revealed that Ericsson gave Chaurasia a SEK 10 million ’golden handcuffs’ bonus, at a time when the company was planning to shed thousands of workers.
The newspaper's sources said it was Hans Vestberg, CEO at the time, who gave her the bonus to get her to stay on for another two years. Ericsson also agreed to her moving to its Silicon Valley office, even though the rest of management is in Kista, part of Stockholm.
When the paper first published its report, the trade union criticised her remuneration, leadership style and her view on the corporate culture. Union representative Per Norlander said that on her watch, productivity fell and working morale deteriorated.
Chaurasia will step down on 15 November. Peter Olofsson, head of corporate communications at Ericsson, told the SvD that allowing Chaurasia to move from Sweden to California was not a mistake. That had been its decision at the time, he said.
He does not foresee any difficulties with the company lacking a permanent head of personnel while there are cutbacks and possible redundancies in the pipeline. The view is that this will work, he said. He would not speculate about Chaurasia’s permanent replacement.
