Motorola Mobility President Rick Osterloh Leaves Lenovo

Rick Osterloh, President of Motorola Mobility, is leaving parent company Lenovo. The announcement comes roughly one and a half year after his company was acquired from Google by Lenovo. Over the past few months, Lenovo has made several bold strategic moves to fit Motorola into its business model.

Lenovo announced the departure of Osterloh on Friday. The Chinese smartphone manufacturer noted that Motorola team will now report to Xudong Chen, SVP, Lenovo MBG and Aymar de Lencquesaing, President NA, Senior VP Lenovo. The two executives will report to Yang Yuanqing, the Lenovo CEO.

The announcement comes as Lenovo grows more aggressive about mixing Motorola’s smartphone lineups into its existing wide-ranging offering. The merging of Motorola into Lenovo began in August last year. The company at the time had told us that Osterloh will be the leader of the combined global smartphone business unit. Earlier this year, Motorola brand name was renamed to ‘Moto by Lenovo.’ At the time, Osterloh said, “We’ll slowly phase out Motorola and focus on Moto.”

But over the months, Lenovo has been trying to merge several of its other product categories as well. Re/code reports Lenovo is currently undergoing a broad reorganisation, as a result, there is a lot of shuffling around happening at various of its business units and executives.

Lenovo is also expanding its PC unit, now including tablets, smart home products running Windows,Chrome OS, and Android, as well as phablets. Lenovo’s President and COO, Gianfranco Lanci will now spearhead the newly renamed PC & Smart Device Business Unit.

Osterloh initially joined Motorola in 2007 and served the position of Corporate Vice President of the company. He left Motorola in June 2010 to join Skype as its Vice President. In 2012, he left Skype (which had been acquired by Microsoft by then) to join Motorola again as its Vice President. He became the President of Motorola Mobility, then a Google company, in 2014. “His steady leadership since Lenovo’s acquisition is appreciated and Lenovo wishes him continued success in the future,” Lenovo said in a press statement.

“The talent and innovation capabilities in Motorola are among Lenovo’s strongest advantages in mobile, so the Motorola teams will continue to enable the entire (mobile business group), including in China.”