Bill Henry, CEO at digital map maker Tele Atlas is said to have left the company. According to our sources and cross verifications, the chief executive of the TomTom subsidiary seems to have left the operations at Tele Atlas early-mid December, while technically remaining in the company, at least until February 18, when TomTom will announce its financial earnings for the full year 2009 and probably officially unveil this change of management.

His departure seems to be linked to some form of reorganization taking place within the TomTom Group.

Bill Henry was brought in by TomTom top executives in June 2008 after the acquisition of Tele Atlas. During his tenure he largely reorganized the structure into a centralized organization (watch our video interview), leading to important staff cuts and several voluntary departures from some long term employees that were not happy with the new management style.

Bill Henry also recruited Anil Srivaststava as Executive Vice President Sales and Marketing but this executive only stayed three months with the company, leaving for Areva Renewables in January 2009. This position will finally not be filled.

During his time at Tele Atlas, Bill Henry not only faced internal challenges, but also a fast slowdown of the PND market growth, accelerated by the fact that Mio, historically its second customer after TomTom, lost an important part of its market share in Western Europe.

In the third quarter 2009 Tele Atlas revenue (excluding intra-sales to TomTom) was €47 million, an 8% year-on-year decrease. The revenue from PND licenses was €11 million (17% decrease) and revenue from Automotive was 13 million (4% decrease). Tele Atlas sold 1.25 million map licenses (PND and automotive) during that quarter against 1.5 million one year before, an 18% decrease.

Peter van der Fluit
To replace Bill Henry, TomTom management is said to have hired Peter van der Fluit, a former vice president and worldwide sales manager for software at Hewlett-Packard where he spent 16 years. He was until December 2009 CEO at Matchcode AG, a marketing company specialized in marketing services, marketing outsourcing and experimental marketing. Peter van der Fluit was not available for comment, but is current position as vice president at Tele Atlas has been confirmed by our investigations.

We can expect these management changes and probably a new organization to be announced during TomTom earnings call on February 18, 2010.

Tele Atlas and TomTom public relations have not been willing to comment on this article.