Colin Giles has joined Lenovo after less than a year at Huawei, where he was a senior executive at the Chinese giant's Consumer Business Group (which includes the smartphones portfolio).
Giles, the former long-time head of Nokia China, has been appointed vice president of the Lenovo Mobile group and will head up global sales and business expansion. He will report directly to Lenovo handset chief Liu Jun.
In January this year, Lenovo Group Ltd. (Hong Kong: 992) announced the acquisition of Motorola Mobility from Google for US$2.91 billion. (See Asia Strengthens Its Grip on Smartphone Market.)
Giles joined Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. in July 2013 and held the job title EVP, marketing, retail and open channel development. (See Huawei Snaps Up Ex-Nokia Exec.)
Giles recently chatted with Light Reading about how his main challenge was to build the Huawei handset brand. Now he has perhaps a bigger challenge -- to help Lenovo, a major PC manufacturer, become a major international smartphone brand. (See Huawei's Handsets Man Has Been Here Before.)
— Robert Clark, contributing editor, special to Light Reading