Dorothy Ooko Jumps Ship to Google as Nokia’s Fortunes Dwindles

A key Nokia East and Southern Africa has jumped ship and joined Google. Dorothy who has been both the face of the drive-by Nokia to fully conquer Kenyan market, as well as the face of Nokia’s blatant theft of young Kenyans’ innovation, is joining Google. Dorothy is said to be joining Google with his new assignment at the Google Kenya office commencing on Monday, 3rd October.

Dorothy is joining Google as the Communication Manager, East Africa, which has been vacant for some time. The post which has been promptly removed from Google job portal had this job description. It was widely posted online including on LinkedIn by Nabil. A key source at Google Africa has denied knowledge of Dorothy joining Google as reported on Nairobi Tech but another source from Google Kenya confirmed that yes Dorothy is headed there and “the clues have been all over”.

Google was very much present both physically at G-Kenya but was also promoting Google which is a Nokia competitor in the mobile apps field.

Unconfirmed rumours are also out that another key colleague of Dorothy Ooko is thinking of joining a different tech company. Nokia has been losing the smartphone market which it led on to new names from far East like Samsung, LG, Huawei and ZTE. The Asian companies have brought into the market smartphones which are more cheaper and widely compatible with various platforms as they mostly run on Google’s Android OS.

It would be interesting to see how Google fair under Dorothy who has been known also not to suck-up to PR companies which she believes does not serve her needs well. Under Dorothy, Nokia PR at one time moved from one PR company to the other every 10 months. It is at Hill and Knowlton that Nokia has stayed for more than one year. Nokia east and Southern Africa is said to be thinking of moving the account sometime before the end of 2011 to a PR company based in Westland.

Google is trying to make it easy for local businesses to go online with the launch of KBO, GNBO and the impending launch of the same in Uganda. The Kampala launch is expected in a few days if not weeks.

We wish Dorothy the best at her new post but hope that no Kenyan will lose an innovation to Google unfairly.

UPDATE: Dorothy Ooko has sent out an email to the media alerting them of her new contact and that she is the new Google Communications & Public Policy Manager, East & Francophone Africa

IMG: iHub