Megaport begins CEO search after Vincent English resigns

Investors have dumped Megaport after the company’s chief executive Vincent English announced he would be leaving next month, sparking a hunt for a replacement.

Megaport chief executive Vincent English has resigned and is set to depart from the Australian-listed technology company next month.

Company founder Bevan Slattery will take over as interim CEO and continue to serve as chairman while the business begins a global search for its next big boss.

Mr English, who has held three roles at the telecommunications and IT infrastructure company, is set to officially depart the company on April 30.

“Vincent has provided outstanding leadership as CEO of Megaport for the past six years, leading the business through its scale up and scale out transformation,“ Mr Slattery said.

“Vincent has been responsible for driving the vision of the company through a period of incredible growth and for creating a legacy which sets the company up for accelerated revenue growth and operational success in the future.”

Megaport founder Bevan Slattery will serve as interim chief executive.

Shares in Megaport have taken a dive of just over eight per cent on the news of Mr English’s departure. The share price is down just under 60 per cent over the past twelve months.

Mr Slattery sold about $39.2m worth of shares in Megaport in March last year, which accounted for about 3 million shares at $13.05 a piece.

A statement to the ASX at the time said the sale was to support “ongoing investment opportunities” and that Mr Slattery was “committed to ensuring the company’s success as it continues to scale up and scale out”.

Megaport offers a Software Defined Network (SDN) which is connected to over 700 data centres in 20 countries. Through a platform it provides connectivity to network, managed service and cloud services.

The company has several cloud and technology partnerships with Alibaba, AWS, Google Cloud, IBM, Microsoft Azure, Nutanix, Salesforce Express Connect, SAP and Oracle.

Mr English departs Megaport after six years in the role as the company’s top boss and just shy of eight years total service.

Prior to joining Megaport he had worked at Digicel Group, holding positions as chief financial officer at offices in Papua New Guinea and the Caribbean nations of Jamaica and Saint Lucia.

He joined Megaport in 2015 as chief financial officer, a role he held for 16 months including a period of several months where he also held the title of chief operating officer. Mr English gave up the CFO reins officially in September 2016 and served as COO until March 2017 when he became chief executive.