Samsung Mobile's Chief Marketing Officer Todd Pendleton is leaving the company, notifying colleagues that effective April he will no longer be a part of Samsung.
Pendleton is perhaps best known at Samsung as being behind the "Next Big Thing" marketing campaign and is said to be the reason for Samsung's rise to smartphone dominance after it launched the Samsung Galaxy S3.
"Samsung continues to strive for innovation in marketing and we've built a marketing Center of Excellence that will drive brand strategy, creative, digital and media across all product categories," said Samsung in a statement. "We wish Todd well, and have thanked him for lending his creativity and inspiration to the mobile business at Samsung. We are excited for the future and look forward to bringing engaging campaigns that will further surprise and delight our customers."
Samsung did not comment on who would take over from Pendleton, and Pendleton has not made any comments on the matter.
The news that Pendleton is leaving has also reportedly caused a number of other employees, mostly staff that report to Pendleton, to leave the company or transfer to other departments.
Apart from being largely behind Samsung's rise in the smartphone market, he has also been called to testify multiple times against Apple in patent trials where Samsung was accused of copying Apple's iPhone.
While Pendleton is behind much of Samsungs smartphone rise, the company has been struggling a little in the industry of late. While it has been at the top of smartphone sales over the past few years, it has recently seen sales drop a little to companies like Xiaomi in China, and Apple in many other markets. In fact, while Samsung has sold more smartphones than any other company for the past four years, it lost out to Apple in Q4 of 2014, largely due to the release of the iPhone 6.
Samsung, however, is hoping to turn this around with the new Galaxy S6, which it showed off at Mobile World Congress last week. The smartphone boasts a completely new design, doing away with the cheap plastic found on previous Galaxy devices, and replacing it with a premium feeling glass.
Samsung has seen a number of top executives leave over the past year. While this isn't all that surprising considering the sheer size of Samsung, many of the executives have been U.S.-based and were involved in the company's mobile business.
Not only that, but the company has also decided to relocate its U.S. mobile marketing group and some other teams from Texas to New York. This is reportedly the main reason for many of the departures from the company.
