Nokia loses top technologist and former Symbian CTO Charles Davies to TomTom

Nokia is having a rough month. First, it saw itself forced to cut its outlook for the second quarter and the full year, and now The Register reports that the Finnish company has lost one of its top tech brains.

Charles Davies, former Symbian CTO and notably the first employee and later managing director of Psion, is leaving the mobile juggernaut to take up an unknown role at navigation giant TomTom.

The latter company has confirmed his appointment to The Register, and promises to provide more details on the recruitment of Davies later.

As The Register notes, there’s a link with TomTom’s current management team from Davies’ Psion days.

TomTom’s rise from software company to consumer hardware was piloted by his former colleague, Psion silicon architect and former CTO Mark Gretton (who now oversees all technology at TomTom). Another senior Psion hardware guy, Ken McAlpine, joined TomTom two years ago after a few years as head of engineering at Apple, where he was involved in the development of the MacMini, AppleTV and iPhone among other products.

Davies’ departure means quite the loss for Nokia Oy. The man was until recently heading the 200-person strong strategy and architecture team for Nokia R&D, a role he has held ever since the company acquired the Symbian staff two years ago.

Like Nokia wasn’t under enough pressure from Apple, RIM and the Android machine as it is.