'My work here is done, tata!' - Calyx Managed Services chief

Calyx Managed Services (MS) is splitting with CEO Martin Mackay after less than two years in the seat. Former Azzurri ops director Steve Clark will replace him.

The departure date of Mackay, former European bigwig at Northgate Information Solutions and international veep at VeriSign is confirmed as the end of August.

He pitched up at the firm in December 2010 to "redefine the vision, strategy and methods of the business", some months after VC Better Capital bought Calyx out of administration, the company said.

This included abandoning the commodity IT reselling market, primarily based around Brocade, to focus on managed services and building a nascent cloud business.

Mackay was also involved in a restructure that saw Better Capital extract the software business from Calyx MS and merge it with a bunch of small similar acquisitions under the m-hance brand.

Better Capital Group CEO Fiona Timothy said in a statement that since Mackay came on board the progress his team had made was "excellent".

Calyx MS also said that it grew its core business by 15 per cent in the most recent financial year, which rather beggars the question of why Mackay is leaving.

Mackay told The Channel that he is leaving by "mutual consent".

"Discussions with the board are such that the turnaround plan is complete, there is confidence internally among employees and externally among suppliers. We are now profitable.

"It was agreed that someone with a deeper experience of managed and connectivity services was required," he said. Mackay said he is planning to return to the enterprise software space.

Incoming CEO Clark was director of operations and group support services director at Azzurri for the last 22 months, and prior to that he was technical director at software start-up Everlogic.

According to financial results for the year to 31 December 2010 - the first posted for the new legal entity - Calyx MS sales were £6.75m and it made an operating loss of £4m.

The 2011 numbers are currently being finalised. ®