Motorola UK’s managing director Andrew Morley is to leave the soon-to-be Lenovo-owned mobile phone company after seven years.
Morley took over as Motorola’s UK head in 2010, after a stint as Motorola’s vice president of international marketing, responsible for its “Life Empowered” marketing campaign. Morley was a group marketing director at Harrods Group, marketing director at BSkyB and European marketing director at Ford, prior to joining Motorola.
“It is the right time to move,” Morley said talking to the Guardian. “It is very difficult to commit to another three years at the company now that it is in the hands of Lenovo.”
Morley discovered that Lenovo had acquired Motorola only 30 minutes before the public announcement in January.
“Google was a great employer, and many people stuck around at Motorola because of Google, but now that incentive has gone,” explained Morley.
Lenovo in, employees out
Morley’s departure comes only three months after it was announced that Motorola would be sold to Chinese electronics firm Lenovo for $2.9bn, two years after it was acquired by Google for $12.5bn.
Despite jumping ship, Morley believes Lenovo’s acquisition of Motorola will be a winning one, citing the Chinese company’s purchase and turn around of the IBM ThinkPad laptop brand as an example of what Lenovo’s success, which has helped the company become one of the world’s biggest laptop manufacturers.
Morley’s departure comes after Motorola’s chief executive Dennis Woodside left the company to become file-syncing service Dropbox’s chief operating officer in February.
Motorola’s senior marketing director Marcus Frost will take on UK marketing responsibilities, while the company recruits a replacement for Morley as UK general manager.
Morley said he is entertaining multiple high-level opportunities, one as UK managing director for another mobile company and another as a head of European marketing for a luxury brand. For now, Morley will be volunteering for six weeks at his local homeless charity, Watford New Hope Trust.
“I didn’t take a gap year after university, and haven’t taken a break between jobs, so this is going to be my mid-life year out, or at least six weeks out,” said Morley.