David Harrison, who was Dermot Desmond's nominee to the board of Independent News & Media (INM), has resigned from the board of the company.
Mr Harrison, who is the chief executive of Mr Desmond's e-learning company, Intuition Publishing, informed INM on Friday of his resignation "effective today". INM announced his resignation to the stock exchange this afternoon.
His resignation follows the departure from the board earlier this year of Jerome Kennedy, the former KPMG managing partner who was its senior independent director.
These departures, in addition to the reclassification this year of two formerly independent directors as non-independent, have left INM in breach of corporate governance guidelines on the composition of its board.
Process
The company says it is running a process to appoint a number of new independent directors to bring it into compliance with governance codes.
Mr Desmond has been contacted for comment in relation to the departure of his board nominee, but The Irish Times has not yet received a reply.
Mr Desmond is the second-largest shareholder at INM with a stake of 15 per cent. The largest shareholder is Denis O’Brien, who controls just under 30 per cent of the company.
INM's chairman, Leslie Buckley expressed his thanks to Mr Harrison "for his extremely valuable and positive contribution to INM over the last five years".
His support and dedication has been invaluable during this transformative period for the business,” said Mr Buckley.
