The CEO of MetService, Peter Lennox, quietly but suddenly resigned two months ago as a Commerce Commission decision about MetService looms.

Peter Lennox was CEO with MetService for nine years and resigned late June – with no media coverage from what we can see.

As CEO his list of innovations over nearly a decade saw MetService acquiring MetOcean marine and MetService building a BBQ Index.

Lennox also dug his feet in over the years with regards to tax funded open data. While he was personally paid very well to run the MetService Government Agency, he insisted small businesses like WeatherWatch should not get access to data that was tax funded or owned by the Crown. But over the years MetService made so many contradictions on this the Commerce Commission had no choice but to investigate their behaviour.

WeatherWatch was only alerted to his resignation news release late last week – a PDF buried on the MetService website. Two mainstream science reporters we spoke to in recent days had no idea the CEO of one of our most well known Government Agencies had in fact suddenly resigned from such a high position two full months ago.

MetService is now scrambling to find a new CEO, saying their Chief Financial Officer (CFO) will take over the day to day operations as they begin the search for a new Chief Executive. Considering MetService works daily with the media it’s incredibly surprising this announcement was kept so quiet for two months. The timing is certainly interesting.

The New Zealand Commerce Commission, after a decade long campaign from WeatherWatch, launched an official investigation into MetService and Niwa a year ago. Lennox has jumped ship from MetService while the agency he ran for 9 years is now currently being investigated for “Anticompetitive Behaviour” and “Abuse of Marketplace power”.

Last month the Commerce Commission confirmed to WeatherWatch an update was coming in August.

Mr Lennox hasn’t quit Government though. His new role will be as Chief Executive for the ESR, a Crown Research Institute.

You can read the MetService press release here.

• Story by Head forecaster Philip Duncan, WeatherWatch.co.nz