Mark Simpson is stepping down as CEO of Seacom, two-and-a-half years after he took the helm at the company, replacing Brian Herlihy.
In a statement, Seacom says Herlihy - founder and original CEO - will step in and fill the leadership role after Simpson leaves.
Seacom did not provide specific reasons for Simpson's departure other than to say he will "pursue personal interests".
The undersea cable operator announced his appointment in August 2011, when Herlihy moved into an executive director position to focus on "strategic projects essential for Seacom's success".
Seacom has since experienced several outages on the cable, and is also investing in its network as it targets Africa for growth. The cable came into operation around mid-2009.
The Seacom IP network covers major centres across Africa's eastern edge and SA, with IP points of presence in SA, Mozambique, Tanzania and Kenya - as well as extensions across borders and into landlocked central countries.
Seacom is looking at expanding into nine more markets throughout Africa - a process that will include spreading the company's physical presence. The operator says Herlihy has been "tasked with continuing the expansion of Seacom's product offering and world-class customer service offering into Africa and beyond".
Simpson has more than 25 years' experience in the telecommunications industry, and has held a number of senior international executive positions during his career, most recently as president and CEO of Pacific Crossing, a company operating a trans-Pacific cable system between the US and Japan.
Simpson was also COO and CTO at Asia Netcom (now Pacnet) and CEO of C2C, Asia's then largest cable system.
Seacom says he "has led the business from a successful project finance initiative into a dynamic broadband sub-sea cable operator".
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