Phoenix cloud boss gone in business unit reshuffle?

CRN understands that Martin O'Donnell has left the firm following merging of hosting and managed services arms

Phoenix is remaining tight-lipped on rumours that its cloud boss Martin O'Donnell has left the firm as a result of a divisional reshuffle.

The IT services outfit yesterday revealed it is merging its Managed Services and Hosting business units this month, citing crossover between the two divisions. The Stock Exchange announcement also warned that EBITDA for its year to 31 March would fall about 10 per cent below expectations.

CRN understands that head of cloud and hosting O'Donnell has exited the company, although Phoenix would not confirm this despite our repeated attempts to obtain comment over the past eight days.

Nick Dean, who heads up the other division affected - Managed Services - appears to still be in a job, according to his LinkedIn page.

One source said O'Donnell's departure was significant as he had "been with the organisation from nearly day zero".

Phoenix only created the current divisional structure it is now dismantling at the start of 2012.

The change saw Phoenix can its long-standing ICM brand in favour of operating under five "customer-facing" divisions: Hosting, Business Continuity, Telecommunications, Systems Integration and Managed Services.

Phoenix merged its SI and Communications business units in January, meaning that only three of the original five now units remain.

Explaining the Managed Services and Hosting merger, Phoenix said: "Increasingly, our customers expect to see elements of hosting, service desk, distributed services and monitoring in our bids and we believe this will therefore enable us to better service our customer base as a single market-facing unit."