Orange Business Services is set for leadership changes, with the operator announcing Monday that current unit CEO Helmut Reisinger will leave the company next month.
Reisinger’s departure is effective January 17. Aliette Mousnier-Lompré, EVP of Operations and Customer Service, has been named interim chief executive until Orange Business appoints a new CEO. Orange didn’t disclose where Reisinger is headed other to say he “wishes to pursue other opportunities outside the Group.”
Reisinger’s exit comes after he took the lead of Orange Business in May 2018 when then-CEO Thierry Bonhomme retired. He’s spent 14 years at Orange, starting in 2007 as head of business in Europe and Russia. In 2015, Reisinger’s scope expanded to all commercial activities outside of Orange’s home market of France to also include the Americas, Asia Pacific, emerging markets and indirect business.
Before his most recent role Reisinger was VP of International business, in charge of all international enterprise business activities.
The operator said that during his tenure as Orange Business CEO, Reisinger oversaw the B2B segment transform into a network-native digital services company, citing key components of analytics, cloud, security and IT services alongside network and connectivity expertise.
Orange Chairman and CEO Stéphane Richard in a statement highlighted Reisinger’s impact on the operator’s digital growth with a focus on cloud computing and data.
“I would like to thank Helmut Reisinger for his constant commitment to the development of the Group's B2B activity,” Richard commented. “In particular, he successfully built-up new activities within Orange Business Services linked to data and cloud computing that have seen double-digit growth for many quarters. During his time, Helmut turned Orange Business Services into a world leader in software-defined networks. I wish him great success in his future endeavors."
In Q3 Orange’s enterprise business recorded revenue declines of 1.4% year over year to EUR 1.86 billion driven by drops in voice services, which represent 14% of the segment revenue. This year saw a rise in IT and integration services for Orange, which were up 2.1% in Q3 to EUR 745 million while mobile enterprise services were up 3.5% to EUR 220 million.
Total enterprise revenues for first nine months of 2021 were up slightly by 0.4%, helped by double digit growth of 14% in cyber security, as well as 8% growth in each cloud services and digital & data.
During Q3 earnings management said the pace of customers’ transitions to fully digital solutions accelerated the drop off in voice services.
On the most recent quarterly earnings call, Reisinger said declines in voice were indicative of a structural trend of the digital workspace evolving. He noted a “strong increase” in customers substituting fixed historical voice, citing mobile volume growth for Orange.
He also noted price changes over the summer, which Reisinger said would be helpful in converting historic voice enterprise customers to voice over IP.
“And if you look to the new trends, you have seen over the summer also that on SD-WAN, software-defined networks, we have now become #1, not only in France, but also across the globe. And that's why it's going to be, I think, a structural element in there,” Reisinger said in October.
In recent months Orange Business has inked relationships with industrial and government partners, leveraging its digital and integration services. In November it announced work with ArcelorMittal and Ericsson to test 4G and 5G private network connectivity at industrial sites in France over the three years, with Orange Business Services acting as operator and integrator. In October the French Space Agency (CNES) chose OBS to lead an industry consortium to design, deploy and maintain a new storage solution for the agency’s scientific and special data – with Orange overseeing global governance of the entire project.