ICT industry veteran Oliver Fortuin will take over from Byron Clatterbuck as CEO of Seacom with effect from January 2021.

Clatterbuck, an American national who joined Seacom in 2012 as chief commercial officer before being named CEO three years later, will leave the company in March next year.

Fortuin has held many senior roles in South Africa’s technology sector, including at IBM and BT Group. He has also served on the boards of several technologies companies as a non-executive.

“Clatterbuck has been instrumental in shifting Seacom from a subsea cable operator to becoming Africa’s leading Internet and data transmission provider, offering services to other service providers, direct to corporates, and, more recently, into the consumer market with the WonderNet brand,” said Seacom chairman Pieter Uys in a statement on Thursday.

Clatterbuck said he has decided to step down for “personal reasons” and that the move had been “planned for some time”.

Fortuin said a key focus for Seacom under his leadership will be strengthening its corporate customer base by offering a wider range of services, helping it “capture more share of wallet in this space”.