Nokia Imaging Chief Damian Dinning Departs For Jaguar Land Rover

Nokia imaging Chief Damian Dinning has left the company, citing family reasons as the reason for his departure.

Dinning, who joined Nokia in 2004 having previously served at Minolta and Kodak, was unwilling to relocate his family from the UK to Finland to continue in his role.

Nokia told TechWeekEurope that it thanked Dinning for his service to the company and wished him the best at his new position at Jaguar Land Rover.

Nokia imaging blow

“Following the relocation of key strategic roles to Finland, and with great reluctance, Damian Dinning has made a personal decision to leave the company effective November 30, 2012,” said a company spokesperson. “During the past nine years, he has made many innovative and valuable contributions to Nokia, most recently as a lead program manager in our Smart Devices business. We thank him for his service to the company and certainly wish him the best”

Dinning confirmed he was leaving the Finnish manufacturer in a statement to PureViewClub.

“My family and I are based in the UK at a stage in our lives where relocation is unfortunately not an option. I have therefore made the tremendously difficult decision after nearly 9 years with Nokia to leave the company,” he said. “I am hugely proud of the work I have been involved with during my time at Nokia and feel privileged to have worked with some of the smartest people I’ve ever been fortunate enough to meet.”

“I have known for some time that I would be leaving Nokia. I’ve spent many many months with this in mind, working with incredibly talented and highly motivated people across various teams building towards the next steps Nokia will take in imaging,” he added. “As for my future, I am moving to an industry I’ve wanted to be part of for a very long time. I am thrilled that I’ll shortly be joining Jaguar Land Rover where I’ll take a role driving future innovations in the exciting new field of Connected Car.”

Imaging has become an increasingly important component of Nokia’s smartphone strategy. Its latest flagship device, the Nokia Lumia 920, boasts an 8.7 megapixel camera and is billed as the best smartphone camera on the market. The company has also released a 41 megapixel cameraphone, the Nokia 808 PureView, however the Symbian-based device was largely ignored by operators in the UK.

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