Motorola’s UK vice president to leave
Motorola’s UK vice president and general manager Andrew Morley is to leave after more than seven years at the business as the company prepares for its takeover deal from Chinese computer giant Lenovo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VunSqD1MOjE
Morley is currently considering new senior marketing and managerial opportunities, but told Marketing Week he is taking a short break from corporate life volunteering for a homeless shelter before making a decision.
As a result of Morley’s departure, Motorola’s EMEA and APAC senior marketing director Marcus Frost will take on expanded marketing responsibilities in the UK region. The company is currently recruiting a replacement to take on Morley’s operational functions.
Morley was promoted to the joint role of vice president and general manager of Motorola’s UK business and general manager of its Vodafone group in December 2010.
Prior to his current role, Morley served as Motorola’s vice president of international marketing, responsible for rolling out its “Life Empowered” brand positioning as well as campaigns for the company’s first tablet, the XOOM, across multiple regions.
Before joining Motorola, Morley held a number of senior level marketing roles during his career including group marketing director at Harrods Group, marketing director at BSkyB and European marketing director at Ford.
He leaves Motorola just three months after it was announced owner company Google – which only acquired the company in 2012 – is to sell the Motorola Mobility business to Lenovo for $2.9bn.
At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona earlier this year, Lenovo’s CMO and senior vice president David Roman said the Chinese company plans to leverage the “strong legacy” of the Motorola brand to accelerate “significantly” into Western markets. Motorola has already made some headway in Western markets in recent months.
The Moto G mid-range smartphone in particular helped drive Motorola’s market share from almost zero to 6 per cent of sales in the UK in the quarter to the end of February – above rivals Blackberry, Sony and HTC – according to Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.
Morley said: “It’s already been a great few months for Motorola with the Moto G and what is clear – from the conversations I’ve had – is that Lenovol will do whatever it takes to make the business successful. They have the largest laptop business in the world, a great footprint in China, a great cost base and really good design; I’m absolutely convinced they will be successful.”
His departure comes days after Motorola announced it had named its senior vice president of product management Rick Osterloh as its chief operating officer, reporting into the Motorola operating board until the Lenovo acquisition is complete.
The acquisition had previously seen the departure of CEO Dennis Woodside, who became chief operating officer of Dropbox in February.
