Nortel Appoints William Nelson As Global Sales Leader

TORONTO – Nortel* [NYSE/TSX: NT] President and CEO Mike Zafirovski announced the appointment of William “Bill” Nelson as executive vice-president, Global Sales, effective January 18, 2008. Nelson is a senior executive with more than 30 years of information technology and telecom experience, including senior sales and general business leadership positions at EMC, Lucent and AT&T.

“Today, we further sharpen our focus on our customers by appointing a global sales leader for Nortel. In Bill Nelson, we have an executive with a track record of building businesses, delivering value to customers and leading organizational change. He understands the important connection between hardware, software and applications in today’s business models. Most of all, Bill knows how to compete and win in a market where IT and telecom are converging faster than ever before,” said Zafirovski. “We have strengthened our operational effectiveness, re-vectored our R&D spend and are building a portfolio of technology innovation second to none. Bill will enhance our revenue development capabilities, manage our global customer relationships in a more integrated fashion and accelerate our go-to-market strategies.”

A proven leader with strong credentials in both information technology and telecom, Nelson has held successively senior executive positions at world-class corporations. Nelson joined EMC in 2001, with global responsibility for developing and managing EMC’s go-to-market model for telecommunications, media and entertainment market coverage, as well as building an Other Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) business for EMC’s storage and storage management platforms with telecommunications infrastructure suppliers. In addition, Nelson is currently the senior vice president and general manager of EMC’s Resource Management Software Group, an organization focused on the development and sale of applications, network, and storage management tools. Previously, Nelson served for 16 years at AT&T and Lucent in various executive positions, including president of Lucent’s Service Provider Operations Group (revenues in excess of $20 billion) with responsibility for sales, support, and customer service to global carriers; global sales and product management leadership for Lucent’s Enterprise Communications Systems Group (later spun out as Avaya); and general manager for the Wireless Networks Group.

“Nortel will be one of the great turnarounds in corporate history, and I am jumping in with enormous enthusiasm and energy,” said Nelson. “Worldwide, customers of all sizes are faced with the challenges presented by the monumental need for connectivity and applications in the hyperconnected era. They are looking for simple solutions that use cutting-edge innovation to drive business results. Nortel has the technology, the know-how and the experience needed to win, and I can’t wait to get started.”

Nelson, 52, is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts with a Bachelor of Science degree and will be based in Nortel’s offices in Billerica, Massachusetts.

About Nortel

Nortel is a recognized leader in delivering communications capabilities that make the promise of Business Made Simple a reality for our customers. Our next-generation technologies, for both service provider and enterprise networks, support multimedia and business-critical applications. Nortel’s technologies are designed to help eliminate today’s barriers to efficiency, speed and performance by simplifying networks and connecting people to the information they need, when they need it. Nortel does business in more than 150 countries around the world. For more information, visit Nortel on the Web at www.nortel.com. For the latest Nortel news, visit www.nortel.com/news.

Certain statements in this press release may contain words such as “could”, “expects”, “may”, “anticipates”, “believes”, “intends”, “estimates”, “targets”, “envisions”, “seeks” and other similar language and are considered forward-looking statements or information under applicable securities legislation. These statements are based on Nortel’s current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections about the operating environment, economies and markets in which Nortel operates. These statements are subject to important assumptions, risks and uncertainties, which are difficult to predict and the actual outcome may be materially different from those contemplated in forward-looking statements. For additional information with respect to certain of these and other factors, see Nortel’s Annual Report on Form10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and other securities filings with the SEC. Unless otherwise required by applicable securities laws, Nortel disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

*Nortel, the Nortel logo and the Globemark are trademarks of Nortel Networks.
Copyright © Nortel Networks 1999-2007. All Rights Reserved