Parts of the NEM, or XEM community were in an uproar this week. The NEM Foundation's leader, Alexandra Tinsman, had a press release about her plan to take a six-month paid sabbatical. Her decision to step back from the daily operations of the foundation was motivated by serious health problems. Some NEM supporters don't seem to be buying it.

On April 8, the NEM Foundation announced a plan for a major restructuring of its operations. The plan includes pulling three separate operational entities under one bigger project. The entities used to be independent of each other. They were NEM Ventures, NEM Software and NEM Trading. Now they will be overseen by NEM Group, a new entity.

The announcement also included Tinsman's sabbatical. One person critical of the move said that a paid six-month sabbatical after one year of work is not earned. It is an insult to the foundation's stakeholders. This person said that a paid six-month sabbatical should not be given until a person has 10 or more years of service at a company.

A lot of other disgruntled investors in the foundation felt the same way. They also shared a sense of dissatisfaction with the lack of progress over the past year. One person said that the NEM coin has been the worst-performing one in their portfolio.

Tinsman did not care about the criticism. She claimed it was just a few squeaky wheels making the noise. She explained that her sabbatical was partly motivated out of a revived health problem for which she had surgery in 2018. It was a heart problem. She said she has worked for 14 hours per day every day for almost two years, and it is affecting her health.

The restructured group will oversee the decentralized aspects of the project. Moving to a more centered and traditional business structure with a CEO will allow for better alignment of goals. Tinsman also added that it will be easier to manage finite resources with the restructured setup. The new CEO of NEM Group will be David Shaw. He was recently with the telecommunications firm Energis.