By Gordon Smith
Published: August 4 2005 08:36 | Last updated: August 4 2005 08:36

Royal Dutch Shell on Thursday named Jorma Ollila, the current chief executive and chairman of Nokia, as a replacement for Aad Jacobs, its outgoing chairman.

Mr Ollila earlier this week outlined his plans to step down from the Finnish telecommunications group, where he has served as chief executive for the last 13 years.

The move follows calls by Aad Jacobs last month for his successor to be neither British nor Dutch following the unification of the oil group after 98 years trading as separate British and Dutch businesses.

Shell, the world’s third biggest listed energy group, will hope its new chairman, who takes up his post from June 1 next year, will transfer some of the success he created at Nokia to the troubled Anglo-Dutch oil group.

Shell was dogged by a series of reserve downgrades last year which lead to the removal of Philip Watts, its executive chairman, and the merger of the dual boards into a unified structure - a process that was completed last month.

Last week it also published a weaker-than-expected first set of results as a single company. The group lags behind competitors such as BP and ExxonMobil in production growth, faces lawsuits in the US over false reserves statements and announced a $10bn cost overrun at Sakhalin-2, its flagship Russian project.

Mr Ollila, 54, turned Nokia from a former maker of toilet paper and rubber boots into the world’s largest mobile-phone manufacturer. But the group has not been without its problems. In recent years it has seen its market share slip as new models from Asian rivals have been enthusiastically welcomed by consumers.