In a shock announcement received yesterday, the team behind the UK launch of LG’s Chocolate, Shine and Prada handsets have simultaneously left.  

John Bernard, UK Marketing Manager, told Mobile Business Magazine:

“It is with both a little sadness and much excitement that after 3 years, I have accepted a fantastic opportunity outside of LG Mobile and will be leaving the company.”

He went on to say that the time had come to move on after seeing through the Shine and Prada launches.

The team’s exodus includes John Bernard, Javier Blanco, Katharine Murray and Matt Dixon.

Bernard would not give the reasoning behind the departure of the entire team and nor would he dicuss whether they resigned or were pushed; however, it is thought that at least three of the team already have other jobs lined up.

John Bernard is thought to be joining an American software company, Katharine Murray has accepted a position at Vodafone and their web developer is moving to EA Sports, this leading to speculation that these departures have been planned for some months.

A source at LG told Mobile Business that it was merely coincidence that the entire team left on the same day; the team themselves are professionally keeping tight lipped about their departure in the same breath mentioning how they’d taken LG from a relatively unknown brand to where it is today in under three years.

LG’s PR department was unavailable for comment – perhaps because there’s no one left?

UPDATE 120707 – LG’s PR manager phoned Mobile Business this morning to assure us that they are indeed still there. She told MB that the success of the team has brought them to the attention of key people and they had been offered jobs elsewhere, the timing of them leaving together is merely a coincidence. LG have gone through the process of recruiting and are in a position to offer the roles in order to get on with a cracking new marketing team.

Mobile Business magazine wishes the new team the best of luck and would like to remind them that it’s customary to send us lots of goodies.

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