Deutsche Telekom board member and T-Systems CEO Reinhard Clemens (pictured) will part company with the operator in January after almost ten years at the company.

The company said it already selected Clemens’ replacement, and will make an announcement shortly.

T-Systems is the division of Deutsche Telekom providing enterprise infrastructure, including data centres and IT networks, to companies and public sector organisations around the world.

In recent years the company shifted its focus from selling its traditional systems to supplying digital solutions.

News of the executive’s departure comes after the business unit reported a 13.4 per cent year-on-year decline in orders in Q2. In its investor statement at the time, Deutsche Telekom said the segment was suffering from “pricing pressures” and “some major contracts concluded in the prior year were not matched by comparable deals.”

Thanking Clemens for his efforts, Ulrich Lehner, chairman of Deutsche Telekom’s supervisory board said: “In a difficult competitive environment, he provided the company with important momentum. His successor possesses the necessary experience and know-how to continue to drive consistently T-Systems’ transformation.”

“The essential aspect of our work in recent years was to make the company future ready and to focus on the challenges posed by digitisation,” Clemens said, adding: “We did so successfully, even though we have not yet achieved all our objectives completely. I continue to feel a strong loyalty to the company and its employees, and I would like to thank them for their unfailing support in the difficult years of restructuring, which placed great demands on all of them.”