Jim McKenna, the chief operating officer of LogicaCMG, the troubled IT consultancy, is leaving the company later this year after 14 years and just four weeks after new chief executive Andy Green arrived from BT.

Mr McKenna acted as interim chief executive after his old boss Martin Read quit in May following a profit warning over UK sales.

He may have been a potential candidate to replace him, but long suffering shareholders are thought to have wanted an outsider particularly following a second profit warning in November.

Shareholder Morley Fund Management had demanded that Mr Read stay on and implement a succession plan, but he chose to leave immediately.

The company insisted today that Mr McKenna's departure was his decision alone and that Mr Green, former head of BT's Global Services consultancy arm, persuaded him to stay on for "six months or so" to steer the creation of a new global Outsourcing Services arm, part of Mr Green's shake up plan for the company.

Mr Green is still conducting a review of the whole group and analysts do not believe his full plans will be unveiled until sometime after results in mid February.

Today he said the Outsourcing Services division would be implemented across Europe in the first quarter of this year and globally by 2009. But there was no detail on costs or cost savings expected from this plan.

Top of Mr Green's agenda is likely to be closer working across Europe and integrating acquisitions. The company has been cobbled together from a series of acquisitions, starting with the merger of Mr Read's Logica with Anglo Dutch CMG and followed by acquisitions in France and Nordic countries. But analysts believe it is exposed to competition from India and China since it has very few staff in these regions and a high proportion in costly Europe.

On top of this, there are growing worries about a global recession during which IT budgets are the first to suffer.

LogicaCMG shares fell 1p to 105.25p in early trade this morning.

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