Recreational Aviation Australia (RAAus) is searching for a new CEO after Matt Bouttell announced last month he would be leaving for another role in aviation.
It is expected Bouttell will leave in mid February for an Executive Manager position with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority.
Bouttell said he decided to move on after seeing out his three-year contract with RAAus.
"Leading the RAAus team as CEO has been an incredible privilege," Bouttell said in a member communique. "I cannot emphasise enough how hard this team of 20 staff work to make your interactions with us positive, to enable new privileges like Group G, to assist you in being safe aviators, and to support our flight training schools across the country.
"We take immense pride in all that we do at RAAus, which has grown from humble beginnings into a professional and modern organisation that exists to enable our members to take to the skies."
Bouttell took over as CEO three years ago after the departure of Michael Linke. He was immediately challenged by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"I’m really proud of what we’ve achieved in the past three years," he said. "Whilst coming out of COVID was a challenge with our staff working from home through lockdowns, we continued to provide uninterrupted service to members, managed to implement Part 149, put systems in place to maintain assurance, finally got Group G over the line, and above all, strived to enable our members to operate with as little fuss as possible."
This will be Bouttell's second stint at CASA, having previously worked at the regulator in an industry relations role.
RAAus is temporarily under the management of Corporate Services Executive Maxine Milera, and an announcement on a replacement CEO is expected in the coming weeks.