Mitie chief executive Ruby McGregor-Smith has decided to call it a day, just weeks after a disastrous profit warning.
On Monday, she announced that she will step down from the outsourcer after 10 years at the helm and hand over the reins to former British Gas boss Phil Bentley on December 12.
However, Lady McGregor-Smith, a Conservative peer, has denied that the company’s poor performance this year has prompted this decision. She said the decision was personal and was influenced by one of her children saying: “I want my mum back.”
The first Asian chief executive of an FTSE 250 company who has doubled Mitie’s revenue and profits during her stint told the company’s board late last year that she wanted to step down in 2016.
She has held the top job at Mitie, which runs government detention centres and cleans airports, since April 2007.
McGregor-Smith told the Evening Standard: “This decision was very much driven by me. I started this job when my kids were six and four years old, and now they’re nearly grown up. One of them said to me recently, ‘I want my mum back.’ So I’m going to take some time out to be with them. Balancing having young kids with running a listed company is hard.”
Shares in Mitie crashed 26% in September after the group warned investors that “significant economic pressures” would cause first-half sales and profits to fall.
A source close to the discussions indicated that Bentley would be receiving more than the £1.5m remuneration package which Lady McGregor-Smith earned last year.
