Logica Benelux President – and for many years, group CFO – Seamus Keating, has resigned with immediate effect ‘to concentrate on other interests’. Keating was ex-CEO Martin Read’s right hand man during the controversial acquisitions of Dutch rival CMG (2002), French mid-market system house Unilog (2005) and Sweden-HQ’d IT services firm WM Data (2006), along with a host of other bits and bobs of various shapes, sizes and locations which came and went over the years. Keating joined Logica in 1999 from Getronics, the Netherlands-based support services firm whose subsequent story is replete in ‘learnings’ about how not to run a support services business (see here). Keating is also a non-exec director at deeply troubled UK business process services firm, Mouchel (see here)
Keating took over leadership of Logica’s troubled Benelux business at the tail end of 2010, replacing Wilbert Kieboom, who also went off to pursue the proverbial ‘other opportunities’. Kieboom joined Logica from a similar role at (then) Atos Origin (see Logica CFO goes Dutch). Logica is trying to screw the wheels back on to its Benelux business and hopes it will return to profit this year. Minding the Benelux shop until a permanent replacement is found will be Logica Chief of Operations, Serge Dubrana. Dubrana was appointed to his current post earlier this year, having previously been Logica CEO, Global Operations and International. He was CEO of Unilog Germany until its acquisition by Logica.
So, for the third time, a man appointed by Logica Group CEO Andy Green with a mission to get Logica’s service delivery operations firing on all cylinders has been diverted to other duties (see Logica – the wrong sort of execution). It also seems to me a pity that Keating was not able to groom a successor from within the Benelux business. The implication that the local management pool does not have a candidate capable of taking on the top job even in an interim capacity is perhaps a little disappointing.