Verity Inc, the Sunnyvale, California search engine and retrieval technology company appears to have ousted president and chief executive Philippe Courtot and replaced him with Gary Sbona. The company didn’t say Courtot had resigned or had been fired, but that Sbona’s tenure would start immediately. Courtot was a very high-profile leader and featured in practically every announcement the company made. We don’t yet know where Sbona comes from, but analysts tracking the company seemed pleased with the change at the top, even if they didn’t know much about Sbona. Courtot had been at the company for four years and left on Thursday, the end of the company’s fiscal year. Verity had posted losses in the third and fourth quarters, but they were due to charges from acquisitions. Earlier this month the company’s chief technology officer Phil Nelson resigned and was replaced with Hugh Njemanze, who was promoted from the company’s VP desktops and applications group (CI No 3,206).
