Jeff Benck, a former IBM Corp. executive recruited to eventually take over running Aliso Viejo-based QLogic Corp., has resigned.
QLogic, a maker of circuit boards and devices for data storage networks, didn’t say why Benck resigned in a brief filing late last week with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Chief Executive H.K. Desai is set to take over Benck’s duties, according to a QLogic spokesman.
Benck, who had served as president and chief operating officer since last May, was tapped as a successor to longtime QLogic leader Desai.
Desai has run QLogic,one of the county’s largest technology companies with a recent market value of $2 billion,since its 1994 spinoff from Costa Mesa’s Emulex Corp.
The company looked for a No. 2 for about a year and half before finding Benck.
Before QLogic, Benck oversaw the group that develops IBM’s server and storage products. He had about 1,400 workers under him at Big Blue.
Benck had worked with QLogic while at IBM. QLogic supplies networking circuit boards for Big Blue computers.
One analyst who asked not to be named said it appears Benck was asked to leave before the end of his first-year contract was up on May 1.
The analyst called Benck “sharp, pretty engaged and the face to Wall Street” and speculated there must have been issues between him and Desai that led to his abrupt resignation.
“We suspect there was likely a disagreement about the timing of Mr. Benck’s succession to the CEO role,” Jayson Noland, an analyst with Robert W. Baird, said in a research note.
