Giles Clarke, CEO of StepStone since September 1999, resigned from his position last week.

A statement issued by StepStone’s board of directors stated that Clarke had ‘resigned from the company, effective immediately’. He has been temporarily replaced by Karen Slatford, who was appointed as non-executive director in March and will act as interim CEO until a permanent replacement is found. Slatford was previously vice president at Hewlett Packard.

Clarke’s sudden departure caught the online recruitment market by surprise. Having achieved a significant amount of fame and personal fortune with Majestic Wines and Pet City, building up both businesses before masterminding lucrative sell-offs, Clarke was very much the public face of StepStone’s successful IPO last year, and the rapid, acquisitive expansion which followed.

Since then, however, StepStone has run into some well-documented problems. It announced a loss in Q1 this year of 375.6m, much of which it claimed was due to one-off restructuring costs, and has had difficulties implementing new versions of its software.

The board statement went on the defensive on the issue of technical difficulties, saying: ‘Although the company has suffered from some delays in the rollout of new technologies in the past, we are confident this market has tremendous potential.

‘We continue to believe strongly in the future of this business,’ it added.

Speculation in the market following the move centred on StepStone’s losses, and the possibility that the StepStone board felt a new face was necessary to regain the confidence of the markets and shareholders.

Speaking to Professional Recruiter, Slatford admitted that the announcement had been ‘abrupt’, but said that it was ‘mutually agreed’ and ‘very amicable’.

‘The company’s going into a new phase in its development,’ she said. ‘We’ve done the expansion we want to do, and are now looking at consolidation, getting back to basics. It was time for a change.

‘We haven’t given the markets or our customers any bad surprises,’ Slatford added.

Following Clarke’s departure, however, StepStone’s shares lost a third of their value in Oslo. StepStone’s Q2 results are due for release on 26 July.