Sony Mobile has announced the departure of two executives from their UK division. Specifically, Catherine Cherry (Benelux Marketing Director) and Nigel Whitehead (Head of Retail and Distribution) have left the company for undisclosed reasons though the move seems to be due to a internal restructuring. It’s unclear at the time if this move was initiated by them or by Sony.

More details after the jump.

The most surprising of the moves comes from Catherine Cherry (pictured above) who has been with Sony for 12 years. Cherry who is responsible for the lack of marketing was supposedly given a larger budget recently where she spearheaded the company’s new “everyday extraordinary” campaign under which real people were featured. Sony has also been more heavily promoting their latest flagship smartphone, the Xperia Z5 along side the newest Bond film, Spectre, with their ‘Made for Bond’ campaign.

Ironically, most people wouldn’t use the words larger budget and Sony marketing in the same sentence. As for Whitehead, he’s been with Sony Mobile for 8 years during which he led the company’s retail and distribution initiative. Once again (though coming from a skewed North American perspective), you can argue that Sony Mobile’s retail presence has only diminished in the past few years.

For a division as in flux as Sony Mobile is, it’s hard to point to singular people as the root cause of their woes though each executive was certainly in charge of riddled parts of the company. Both executives were in charge of their respected division in the UK. In a statement, Sony had this to say:

 The organizational change in EMEA is part of the ongoing measures to drive transformation and profitability within Sony Mobile, based on the CEO’s management strategy announced in November last year. 

The re-grouping of customer units into regions is one of the important measures to allow better prioritisation of marketing efforts, as well as more efficient allocation of resources, therefore strengthening Sony’s position within EMEA, which will continue to be a key region for Sony Mobile going forwards. 

Discuss:

Do you think Sony’s marketing and retail presence has improved or diminished in the last few years in Europe?

[Via Mobile Today]