Now in its 15th sell-out year, the Mobile News Awards is the mobile channel’s premier awards night and our very own John Barton – Sales & Marketing Director of LG’s Mobile Division in the UK & Ireland – has been nominated for ‘Industry Personality of the Year’.

John has been in the mobile industry from the early days of BT Cellnet’s battle for supremacy with Racal Vodafone. However, his early professional life saw him graduate with a law degree and begin work for the Inland Revenue, just after the introduction of Capital Transfer Tax.

Starting in the mobile industry as Sales Director of Cellnet (now O2) he moved on to become one of the Directors of Talkland the UK’s largest Service Provider which subsequently became Vodafone Retail.

Having joined the Caudwell Group John became Managing Director of both Phones 4u and the group Service Provider Singlepoint before moving on to become Sales Director of One2One, occupying the role through the transition into T-Mobile UK.

Before joining LG Mobile John was Sales Director of the new Hutchison owned network “3”, seeing it through its launch phase into a fully operational business.

Since joining LG in April 2005, John has lead a very positive period for the brand’s mobile division, with particular reference to the change in brand perception and recognition within the UK. He has successfully established LG Mobile as a leading design player in the UK mobile space, together with the help of some fantastic products in the form of the LG Chocolate, the LG Shine, The Prada Phone by LG, and the recently launched, LG Secret.

John studied law at Nottingham University, has a substantial music collection and is a diehard Liverpool supporter. He is married with one son who has just finished his second University course.

So head on over to the awards site and cast your vote for John now!