Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU) Chief Executive Patricia Russo held her job for so long and through so many periods of brutal earnings and staff reductions that it appeared that she had nine lives.

She went through the ninth one today. She and the company Chairman Serge Tchuruk will leave the company later this year. According to The Wall Street Journal, "With Alcatel-Lucent facing a sluggish market and fierce competitive pressures, the departures of the company's two figureheads does not come at an easy time." It does, however, come at the right time. Russo did everything in her power to scuttle the company.

Over the last year, shares in ALU have dropped from $14.55 to just above $5 in May. They have since recovered to about $6.

Supporters may say that the financial problems at Alcatel-Lucent were not of Russo's making. The market for telecom equipment has indeed been weak. But, the integration of the merger between the two companies was ill-conceived at the start and poorly executed moving forward.

It is time to let someone else have a turn at trying to fix the company.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.