Telecom's director of home services, Ralph Brayham, has quit as the telco cleans out 200 middle management jobs.
Brayham was behind the company's introduction of TiVo, is a director of its online joint venture, YahooXtra, and ran the online retailer, Ferrit, until its demise early last year.
Brayham has announcedhis June exit internally and is expected to be replaced from inside Telecom, a source said.
"While I'm disappointed to lose someone of Ralph's calibre and experience from the team, I certainly respect his decision and who knows maybe one day we might convince him to come back into the fold," said Telecom Retail chief executive Alan Gourdie.
An industry insider said Brayham had an entrepreneurial approach to products and services, but may have felt stifled by the Telecom corporate structure.
His departure comes as Gourdie reviews Telecom's retail business with a proposed new structure released to staff last week.
Under Gourdie's plan jobs held by Brayham, incoming head of mobile Kieren Cooney, branding and marketing head Craig Herbison and small business head Victoria Crone would disappear.
Telecom Retail spokesperson Nick Brown said rather than grouping teams around particular product sets, Telecom Retail will be grouped around key functions such as product development and management, marketing, sales, customer service and support, and these teams will work across all products sets.
"There is a new structure and people will get appointed into new roles some of which will be more similar to what they were already than others," said Brown.
"Final confirmation on all roles and appointments are still to be announced internally. This is happening through an ongoing process of communication and consultation with staff over the next month."
Brayham, who became a co-owner of music store Real Groovy in 2008, said the organisational changes meant it was the right time to move on with minimal disruption.
"But a new structure is not the reason for the move, I'm simply looking forward to putting energy into my own business venture and looking at what's next for me," he said.
Telecom announced in April it planned to slash 200 jobs by mid-year with more lay-offs likely.
