A husband and wife team have been made redundant after a restructuring of the Rotorua Energy Charitable Trust.
Chief executive Stuart Burns and his finance administrator wife Andrea Thompson will finish up at the trust at the end of October after their roles were disestablished.
Trust chairman Grahame Hall said the restructuring was not a financial decision but was "realistic". The trust decided to outsource its investment management to an international firm to increase its contacts and improve its investments.
Mr Hall said that had changed the role of the chief executive. Mr Burns has been chief executive for 21 years.
Mr Hall said over the course of those years his role had changed slightly.
The trustees had decided to close its funds management business, Perpetual Capital Management, and outsource investment management to global firm Mercer.
"We've disestablished two roles. We really didn't need a chief executive, we need a manager. It's a very highly paid chief executive, but that's not the issue. The issue is we have to be realistic," Mr Hall said.
The trust was keeping on its grants assessor, Alison Perrin, but Lee-Anne Thompson's executive secretary role had been disestablished, Mr Hall said. The trust's restructure comprised a full-time trust manager and two full-time and two part-time administration-type roles.
The positions would be advertised, Mr Hall said.
The news was broken to staff about three weeks ago, but was not announced at its annual meeting last week because "legal obligations" had not been completed.
"When you're dealing with people's lives, and they have been there for a long time, we've got to be really mindful of that and do the best we possibly can."