IAN STEWART, the chairman of Edinburgh-based IT group Realise, has quit his post following revelations by the company that losses for this year were likely to surpass last year’s figure of £1.17 million.
Realise - which provides business consultancy and IT services for companies, including beer giant Scottish & Newcastle - said Mr Stewart had left by "mutual consent". It is not known if he will stay on in a non-executive role.
Mr Stewart was appo
inted chairman of the group in October 2000, following a cash injection of £4.75m by venture capital outfit 3i.
Bruce Keith, investment director at 3i, said the decision had been "amiable".
"It was a three-way decision between 3i, Realise and Ian," he added, but declined to give any further reasons .
Mr Stewart was today unavailable for comment, but the hunt is on for his replacement, Realise said.
It is Mr Stewart’s second "departure" from an executive post in a matter of weeks. Recently, he quit the chairman’s seat at Edinburgh software recruitment firm Intagen, following a financial restructuring.
Gavin Nicholson, Realise’s managing director, said the company would post losses that were "fairly sizeable" this year, adding that they would exceed last year’s losses of £1.17m.
But he added that the company had taken steps - including the axing of ten per cent of its workforce - to address the matter and Realise would "definitely be in profit" by the following year, when turnover is expected to hit £6.5m.
Meanwhile, ScotlandIS announced today that it has appointed a new board of directors.
Figures from industry giants BT, Cisco, IBM, ICL, Microsoft, ScottishPower and Sun Microsystems have agreed to join the seven existing board members to form a new top team at the independent trade association .
Among the new faces are Maggie Morrison of Cisco Systems, Bob Downes of BT Scotland, Peter Logue at IBM and Gordon Cameron of Sun Microsystems.
Chairman Nick Kuenssberg said: "Our credibility will be increased substantially by the widely-acknowledged calibre of the new directors"
