Sage founder member, managing director and executive vice-president of Africa and Middle East Anton van Heerden is leaving the software development firm later this year after 20 years in employment.
According to the company, Van Heerden is taking time off "to spend some time with his family while considering [his] next opportunities".
He will be replaced by Pieter Bensch, who is currently executive vice-president and managing director of Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
"Anton van Heerden has decided to leave Sage. Kavir Kissun, the leader of our finance organisation in the region, will take over as interim MD and we will welcome Pieter Bensch, who joins Sage from Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), as our new leader later in the year," said the company in a statement.
Kissun is finance director of Africa and Middle East at Sage and has been with the company for just over a year.
Van Heerden was one of the founders of VIP Payroll in 1995. He was MD of Sage VIP Payroll and HR from that time until 2012. He then moved on to serving as MD of Sage HR and Payroll, until October 2015, at which time he undertook his current role.
Bensch held various positions at Oracle since 2005, prior to joining HPE in March 2015. These included vice-president of Oracle Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), vice-president of customer support for MEA and, finally, vice-president and MD of Oracle SA (since November 2010).
In 2015, Hewlett-Packard announced it was splitting into two separate companies: HP Inc, focusing on printers and personal computers, and HP Enterprise, which manages the higher growth servers, storage devices and services units. That split was said to cost more than 30 000 jobs globally.
Bensch was not immediately available for comment and HPE could not confirm details regarding his departure by the time of publication.
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