Ericsson chairman Leif Johansson will jump ship before the company’s 2018 AGM, as the troubled infrastructure giant enters what he described as a “new phase”.

Johansson (pictured), who was appointed to the role in 2011, said he decided not to seek re-election to enable a “new ownership constellation” to jointly propose its own candidate, as Ericsson acts to execute a new strategy focused on its core markets.

The vendor hopes its new direction will return it to profitability. Ericsson booked a net loss of SEK10.9 billion ($1.2 billion) in Q1 2017 compared with a profit of SEK2.1 billion in the same period of 2016, and registered an 11 per cent year-on-year decline in revenue to SEK46.4 billion.

Ericsson’s updated strategy places infrastructure sales to operators front and centre, following several years when it also held ambitions to expand in the media, utilities and transport sectors in order to generate a quarter of its revenue from outside telecoms by 2020.

In late June, Bloomberg reported Ericsson appointed banks to explore the sale of its two broadcast and media units as part of its restructure. Ericsson also introduced a simplified management structure, which resulted in several executives being moved around within the company as it halved its number of geographical locations.

Johansson conceded he had chaired Ericsson through “an exciting but also challenging time”, but expressed confidence the new strategy and the appointment of Borje Ekholm as CEO in January “creates a solid foundation for realising Ericsson’s full potential”.

The company said its nomination committee is already searching for Johansson’s replacement.