Chief executive Richard Saunders said the now-completed restructure would create the "right foundation" for the organisation.
Former operations general manager Dr Gavin Palmer had left the council and a relative newcomer, former science manager Tom Dyer, was now part of the executive leadership team, Mr Saunders said.
He outlined a range of new roles and responsibilities for the council’s six general managers in response to questions by the Otago Daily Times yesterday.
"Structure on its own will not achieve this, but it’ll create the right foundation for us to keep improving as an organisation."
Dr Palmer made the decision in March not to pursue any of the new roles and was farewelled at the June 26 council meeting, Mr Saunders said.
Mr Dyer left a job at the Dunedin City Council (where he served for several years as the Three Waters group manager) to become the regional council’s science manager in 2022.
Now, Mr Dyer was the regional council’s science and resilience general manager, Mr Saunders said.
In the role, he would oversee Emergency Management Otago and the engineering, environmental monitoring, natural hazards and science teams.
Former governance, culture and customer general manager Amanda Vercoe was now strategy and customer general manager.
She was also appointed deputy chief executive, Mr Saunders said.
At last month’s council meeting, chairwoman Gretchen Robertson formally marked the "significant contribution" Dr Palmer made to the organisation in almost 20 years in leadership roles.
Yesterday, Dr Palmer said he had confidence the council would "carry on doing great work".
"It’s an essential part of society and the issues it’s dealing with — all of the issues — are as important as they’ve ever been.
"I’m sure it’s all going to go well.
"Really, what’s happened is our kids have left Dunedin — they’re at university in Christchurch and Auckland — and just reflecting on where we were at, [we were] thinking there were other opportunities. I’m still really interested in issues to do with climate change and natural hazards and the environment — I’m just going to go about being involved in those things in a different way."
Dr Palmer said his work on the climate change adaptation technical working group, and recent projects in South Dunedin were among highlights of his time at the council.
He would now be finishing his private pilot’s licence and undertaking consulting work.
