VMware is losing a telecom and edge cloud executive to a new “special purpose acquisition company” that plans to invest in telecom, 5G, and edge business that could help VMware’s telecom and edge plans. The move comes as the virtualization giant searches for a new CEO to replace long-time captain Pat Gelsinger.

Shekar Ayyar, who is an EVP and GM for VMware’s Telco and Edge Cloud, will lead the newly formed AdMY Technologies on the investment strategy. He explained in a statement that the company “will greatly enhance the ability to identify, target, and invest in candidates within the telco, 5G, and edge industry.”

Ayyar will, in the near term, continue to serve as a special advisor to VMware’s interim CEO Zane Rowe. Ayyar’s current position will be taken over by Sanjay Uppal, who will add the new titles to his current role as SVP and GM of VMware’s SD-WAN service.

VMware noted that despite losing another executive, it “continues to grow its investments to accelerate innovation for the telco and communication service provider industries.”

Ayyar has overseen VMware’s push into the telecom space. That work has been solidified under its Telco Cloud Platform that is designed as an orchestration and automation layer underpinning current 4G LTE and 5G networks and to help service providers accelerate their time to market and onboarding of virtual network functions (VNFs), cloud-native network functions (CNFs), and network services. The vendor has struck several recent deals to power 5G radio access network (RAN) services from Samsung and Dish Network.

Uppal brings a lot of success from VMware’s SD-WAN, which has been a long-time leader in that space.

The executive change also comes as VMware searches for a new CEO to replace Gelsinger who left the company last week to head up Intel. Analysts noted that Gelsinger’s departure doesn’t bode well for VMware in the near term.

“This was shocking,” said Zeus Kerravala, principal analyst at ZK Research, in an email to SDxCentral, following Gelsinger’s departure news. “I felt that Pat [Gelsinger] was the heir apparent to Michael Dell to run all of Dell Tech when Michael chose to step down. This isn’t good news for VMware, whose executive ranks have already been thinned out.”

During his tenure, Gelsinger oversaw more than 30 acquisitions and successfully pushed the company into networking, cloud, security, containers, and 5G. Meanwhile, he nearly tripled revenue to $12 billion.

“VMware, like most companies, is going through some major transitions as it pivots to distributed cloud, security, networking, and containers,” Kerravala said. “This is where strong leadership is needed to ensure the company doesn’t favor short-term success over long-term transformation.”

VMware late last year also lost a pair of executives as former COO Rajiv Ramaswami left for the chief executive post at Nutanix, and Cloud Management SVP Ajay Singh jumped ship to Pure Storage.