Iomart chief executive Lucy Dimes in sudden departure
Chairman Richard Last is taking over as executive chair with immediate effect while the board makes arrangements to appoint a new chief executive. He will be supported by chief financial officer Scott Cunningham, Atech chief executive Ryan Langley and Angus MacSween, the founder and a non-executive director of Iomart.
Lucy Dimes (Image: Iomart)
In a brief statement to the London Stock Exchange the company said its board of directors "would like to thank Lucy for all her work in helping to reposition Iomart's business to more fully address the opportunities in the public and private cloud and security markets".
In February Iomart warned that users of its higher-margin private managed services are being replaced at a faster rate than expected by lower-margin cloud and security business. Ms Dimes had prioritised cloud and security business because although this market is less profitable, it offers bigger growth potential.
Iomart said at that time that the acceleration in its customer churn rate would result in profits for the year to March 31 coming in roughly 10% below previous market expectations.
In a subsequent trading update on April 23 the company said it anticipates full-year revenue growth of 13% to approximately £143m, including contributions from acquisitions.
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Iomart stated today that there has been "no material change to trading" since that time. The company is due to report its full-year results in late June.
Ms Dimes joined Iomart as non-executive chair in August 2022, having previously worked in senior executive positions in both listed and private equity-owned companies spanning the telecoms, technology, business services and financial services sectors.
She transitioned to executive chair on a part-time basis in July 2023 and took sole leadership in September of that year following the abrupt departure of previous chief executive Reece Donovan, who had been in the post since September 2020.
Shares in AIM-listed Iomart were trading more than 5% lower today as of late afternoon.
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