3Com chief executive Edgar Nasri has parted company with the networking vendor to be replaced by Robert Mao.

Mao was previously 3Com's executive vice president of corporate development and prior to that he headed up operations in China for both Nortel and Alcatel. The 64-year old will be based in China and will focus on the company's H3C business.

He will continue to serve on 3Com's board of directors in his new role. The vendor has also appointed Ronald Sege, as chief operating officer. Sege previously worked for 3Com for nine years until 1998, after which he worked as chief executive of Ellacoya Networks and Tropos Networks and also worked for search engine Lycos.

In his new role Sege will focus on driving the profitability of 3Com's TippingPoint business. He will report to Mao and will be based in the US.

Eric Benhamou, chairman of 3Com's board, said: “We wish to thank Edgar for his leadership and contributions to 3Com. Edgar helped the company through a challenging period and helped us make progress on a number of fronts, including the successful acquisition of H3C and the development of a differentiated technology strategy with Open Services Networking, or OSN. We wish him well in his future endeavors.”

"In addition to his 30 years in the global IT and telecommunications industry, Bob’s bi-cultural background, extensive business experience in Asia and fluency in Mandarin and English offer a rare set of skills that can bridge Chinese and western organisations. Bob brings the company a set of skills that are uniquely fitted to 3Com’s current business needs. Having him based out of China and having an experienced leader of Ron's caliber based in the United States will allow us to speed execution of our global business plan.”

Mao said: “I am extremely excited about this opportunity to help 3Com capitalise on the tremendous potential it has to enhance its position as a global networking leader. I believe 3Com can leverage H3C as the cornerstone of its future. In less than five years, H3C has built a broad, world-class portfolio of networking, video and storage solutions and gained market share leadership in China. Our objective now is to combine the strength and momentum of H3C with 3Com’s global customer base, well-recognised brand, service and support infrastructure and proven distribution channel. By leveraging these strengths, we will offer customers broad, high-quality, cost-effective solutions on a worldwide basis – this is a compelling value proposition.”

Sege said: "Working with Bob, I plan to accelerate global market penetration for our high-value networking, video and storage solutions, as well as to continue to drive operational excellence throughout the company. I was attracted to re-join 3Com in large part because of its unique ability to offer customers and partners a differentiated alternative for building future-proof, intelligent networks that deliver real business value to an organisation. We have tremendous opportunity ahead of us.”