Former Westcoast head of mobile Darren Seward has taken up a new role at Xiaomi.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Seward is now senior sales manager for e-commerce and open market at the Chinese challenger brand as of this month.
He is based at the vendor’s head UK office in Reading, not far from Westcoast’s head office in Arrowhead Park.
Seward joined Westcoast as business manager for non-HP client devices in 2009 after nine years at Ingram Micro, where he had risen to become general manager for software and mobility.
In 2016, he became head of mobile, helping to grow relationships with Huawei, Apple, Samsung and Bullitt Group, as well as managing Westcoast’s value-added mobile services such as SOTI, Lightspeed and MendIT.
Seward and Xiaomi declined to comment further to Mobile News.
In another recent Xiaomi sales appointment, Linghan Liu has become head of operator sales for the UK and Ireland. Liu, a former Huawei account manager, took the job in May.
Additionally, UK and Ireland head of sales Andrew Kidd left Xiaomi in May. Kidd, a Samsung and Sony veteran, had been in the role for just over six months.
Meanwhile, Westcoast’s former retail sales director, Matt Pasco, has moved across to sister company Data Select to become director of B2B, enterprise and retail.
Pasco was at the Reading-based distributor for nearly 14 years, becoming retail sales director in 2014.
Commenting on Pasco’s new role, Westcoast managing director Alex Tatham said: “It’s an exciting opportunity and a high-profile move. “He’ll do really well there; he’s a tremendously talented individual.”
Pasco and Data Select were unavailable for comment.
