New head Lauretta Stace, who started on Wednesday, August 9, has had 30 years experience at management level in the health, aged care and community sectors, including a 10-year period as CEO of peak body Fitness Australia.

Her appointment comes after former CEO was stood down amid anger after graveside adornments at Eaglehawk cemetery were removed and taken to the tip, mostly without community consultation.

Ms Stace's social media shows her managing Royal Freemasons Bendigo aged care facility from May until June this year after a period travelling around Australia.

From 2017 until 2022 she worked in Tasmania, and before that she was in NSW.

In a statement, cemetery trust board chair Marg Lewis said that Ms Stace was the board's unanimous choice from 35 candidates and that she had "the right mix of personal qualities and professional expertise" to deliver on the next phase of RPCV's strategic plan and to work collaboratively with all its stakeholders and communities.

The new CEO had been set a number of "short to medium term priorities", including annual reporting and planning tasks and the delivery of a 2023 enterprise bargaining agreement.

The consideration of the cemetery trust's adornment policy, a matter of significant public interest, was to take place as part of a "comprehensive stakeholder and community consultation project" about future plans for the trust's cemeteries, which was anticipated to start in late September, Mrs Lewis said.

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The statement said Ms Stace had recently moved to Eaglehawk and was looking forward to becoming a member of the community as well as leading the organisation.

"I am delighted to have been appointed to lead RPCV," she was quoted as saying. "I have always experienced the greatest sense of joy, satisfaction and fulfilment when working with a skilled and committed group of people and a purpose-driven organisation that strives to work for the common good in the community".

Under the leadership of former CEO Emma Flukes, during which cemetery staff at Eaglehawk were instructed to remove items adorning gravesites and take them to the tip, there was a widely perceived lack of consultation and engagement with the community and a failure to focus on the common good by RPCV management.

More than 15,000 people signed a petition about the adornment policy, calling for people to be allowed to personalise their loved ones' graves.

Ms Flukes was stood down, in February, then later sacked, after aggrieved cemetery plot holders organised protests and called in the media to report on the stripping of the graves.

Some people argued that Ms Flukes had been made a scapegoat and called for the whole of the RPCV board to be sacked.

In the statement board chair Marg Lewis thanked acting CEO Maureen O'Keefe, who helped address deep public disaffection about the events at Eaglehawk after she was appointed in the interim role.

"Maureen has been a compassionate and dedicated leader at a tumultuous time for RPCV and we thank her for her leadership and care of the organisation and all its staff," Mrs Lewis said.

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