Former devices chief out at Motorola

In the bruising business of turning Motorola Inc. around, Stu Reed — former president of mobile devices and, previously, the company’s global supply chain — has hit the mat.
Reed’s departure, “effective immediately,” was announced late Friday afternoon and characterized by the company as a resignation.
Reed has company — in the thousands — though only the departures of high-profile executives have led to formal announcements. About 7,500 rank-and-file employees have been dismissed in cost-cutting moves over the past year, while a significant number of high-level executives have exited as well.
The executive departures appear to be a combination of talent looking for other opportunities while Motorola finds its way back to profitability, a house-cleaning by CEO Greg Brown, who may seek to anoint his own team, and basic cost-savings.
Brown had announced shortly after taking office in January that he, not Reed, would personally run the devices business after Reed had spent four months in the position. Then, last Monday, Brown announced that Motorola would seek an outside executive with experience in telecom, the Internet or computing to direct a “product-led” recovery for the unit. Brown said he was spending 80% of his time running the device division.
Clearly, after the search for a new leader from outside the company was announced, Reed had little hope of regaining the premier spot. Brown had said that Reed had the misfortune to ascend to device chief at a time when problems were overwhelming that division.
Reed follows Motorola’s former CEO Ed Zander, who stepped down Jan. 1 (but remains chairman until June), former Chief Marketing Officer Kenneth Keller, who was shown the door this week and CTO Padmasree Warrior, who is now CTO at Cisco Systems. Keller will not be replaced, the company said.
After former device chief Ron Garriques left in January 2007 — when it became clear that Motorola’s lunge for market share and lack of new products would hamper results for the foreseeable future — the mobile devices unit was run by two executives, Terry Vega and Ray Romans, both of whom left the company last year. Garriques now is head of consumer devices at Dell Inc. Former CFO Dave Devonshire also was given the heave-ho last year, replaced by interim CFO Tom Meredith, who just relinquished the post to newly hired Paul Liska, an executive with private equity background.
Brown said Jan. 31 that Motorola was seeking a partner or investor for its handset division, an announcement met with demurrals of interest from its rivals.
Reed was appointed last September to run Motorola’s top division, more than a half year after Garriques’ departure.