It came to a head the week before. Mark had previously agreed with the board on looking into the option of seeing what interest there may be in selling off the legacy MF business units. As the board has stated, they have been working with financial partners on exploring selling off parts of the company.
The board and Mark had an agreement that he would focus on turning around ADM + ITOM during FY25. Mark figured he would add more sellers to these teams and that would take care of the problem. Plus, he himself would be the ultimate oversight. The FY25 results meant he failed.
The board then laid it out to Mark that they would now take the direction of selling non core assets. They have been working this for over a year now. They told Mark he was not the leader that would oversee this transformation. It would show weakness to the industry and customers that the leader of the company including technology who made these acquisitions would now say "oops" and start selling them off.
Mark was asked to resign with a transition period. He refused. He had already bucked the board by firing the previous CFO, Madhu, because she was supporting the board over Mark. The board voted and agreed Mark was too volatile to leave him in place and they voted him out effective immediately.
Now the board through the retired general in place to tell the current leadership what to do and how to do it, has directed them to inform employees through a series of org specific messages (videos to teams, meetings) that employees must now put on their big boy and girl pants, accept that they may be getting WFRd or sold off, but double down on selling and and supporting sellers for the success of the company. In fact, the senior leaders have all been told that the stance the company is taking during this interim period is 1. Employees are to be selfless 2. Leaders are to let employees know that they are also being selfless and acting only for the betterment of The Company 3. That uncertainty in your career is just how life is and su-k it up and embrace it but don't focus on it.
The board is VERY concerned about customer churn. They are not in a place to announce which assets are being sold because there is significant money on the table for Q1 and Q2 and they want these deals closed. The board is also very concerned about employees of worth jumping ship, many are likely already setting up interviews. Company in a position to have both a brain drain, current and next quarter loss of sales, and pipeline decimated as customers take their potential business elsewhere.
The behind the scenes spin is egregious. The messaging will be vague and starting today into next week expect to hear repeatedly how everyone must pull together and put their concerns about their job or their team aside.
Goal is to have the next CEO at OTW.
The non core assets have already been identified.