Harman Appoints Henry Tirri as Chief Technology Officer

Harman International Industries announced that Henry Tirri will join the company as Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, effective June 1, 2016. Tirri previously served as Nokia’s Chief Technology Officer in Palo Alto and served as an advisor to several of the world’s leading technology companies in matters related to digital technologies. Tirri will join the Harman Executive Committee and report to Dinesh C. Paliwal, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Harman.

With a unique background as an academic, corporate technologist, executive and entrepreneur, Henry Tirri has extensive experience leading and converting cutting edge technology development, product management and intellectual property into high growth business opportunities on a global scale. From 2004 to 2015, Tirri held technology leadership roles of increasing responsibility at Nokia, helping usher the transformation of the company from a mobile device manufacturer to one of today’s leaders in communication infrastructure and technology licensing. As Executive Vice President and CTO, and member of the Nokia Leadership Team, he was responsible for setting Nokia’s technology agenda, owned all forward-looking R&D and drove Nokia’s core innovation.

Prior to joining Nokia, Tirri was a tenured Professor of Computer Science, Head of the Graduate School and the Intelligent Systems Laboratory at the University of Helsinki, leading a world-class research group in probabilistic modeling. He has held various academic positions including Visiting Scholar at the University of Texas at Austin; Research Scientist at Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corporation (MCC); Member of Technical Staff at AT&T Bell Laboratories; and Visiting Scientist at NASA AMES, Visiting Professor at Stanford University and an Adjunct Professor of Civil Engineering at University of California at Berkeley. He is the author and co-author of numerous academic papers in various fields of computer science, social sciences and statistics and holds many patents in information technology.

Tirri holds Bachelors, Masters and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from the University of Helsinki, Finland and an Honorary Doctorate from University of Tampere. His personal research interests span from Artificial Intelligence, machine learning, information theory and analytics to the programmable world/Internet of Things. 
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