Chief Marketing Officer Ben Ho and President of Engineering and Operations Fred Liu have both decided to step down from their current roles at HTC. The news comes a few weeks after HTC announced positive numbers for the second quarter of 2014, exposing the fact that HTC is still on shaky ground despite the success of the HTC One (M8) and the company’s new approach with the HTC Desire line of phones.
Ben Ho was hired as Chief Marketing Officer at HTC a year and a half ago and was responsible for the company’s Here’s To Change marketing campaign which features Robert Downey Jr. in a handful of hilariously odd TV commercial which left most people scratching their heads. According to Bloomberg, Ben Ho is still at HTC but will be making his exit before the end of the year. The report also claims that Cher Wang will be taking over the position of Chief Marketing Officer in addition to her current responsibilities as Chairwoman.
Fred Liu’s is dropping his day-to-day responsibilities as President of Engineering and Operations and will be serving the company as a strategic adviser as he winds things down in preparation for his retirement.
We reached out to HTC this morning for comment. While our contact did not confirm or deny Bloomberg’s story, they did provide us with a statement which shows the company is laser focused on its commitment to “push forward “to create a resurgence of the HTC brand.”
“HTC’s dedication to innovation drives us to pursue our goals. We are taking the necessary steps to create a resurgence of the HTC brand. As a company, we will continue to push forward, making the hard decisions needed to continue growing as a global presence. We are confident that the business steps we have taken, and continue to take, are the right ones to lead to a strong resurgence of the HTC brand. HTC continues to invest in talent and recruitment as part of our broader human resources strategy to ensure the continued strength of our company’s organizational structure.”
Come on, people come and go. Problem would be if they would all stay forever.
New blood is needed.
I’m very happy seeing about Ben Ho. That marketing campaign with Robert Downey Jr was a waste of money. The best commercial to me it’s still the HTC Butterfly First Look. It’s not saying “Go ask the internet”, when everybody complains about the camera that you will sell.