Logicalis CEO serves notice. Ring, ring: Hi, Mr Ballmer? A minute of your...CLICK

Headhunters are scouring the industry for a successor to Logicalis CEO Ian Cook, who it emerged today is standing down at the end of February.

Cook rocked up at the IBM and Cisco integrator as CEO of European operations in 2003 and three years later was handed the top operational job.

He will become Logicalis chairman from the new fiscal year starting in March, taking over from Jens Montanana, who doubles up as chairman of parent Datatec Group.

Under Cook's leadership, the firm doubled revenues to near £1bn, spread its wings to expand in emerging markets including Brazil and Mexico, and built up an infrastructure services portfolio.

Montanana said his Logicalis general had "transformed the business model" to rely less on product reselling, and had built a pan-regional brand and a framework to deliver those services in each territory.

The firm seemed to be holding its own in the market when it filed numbers for fiscal '13 ended 28 February: sales bounced nine per cent to $1.35bn and operating profit rebounding 28 per cent to $54.7m.

But with no obvious successor lined up internally, Logicalis said today it is "retaining" the services of a global exec recruiting firm to unearth the next CEO.

One Steve Ballmer should be coming onto the job market in the not-too-distant-future.

Cook did not respond to calls at the time of writing. ®