The director of the Royal Society of Literature (RSL) will leave to “pursue new career opportunities” following a year that saw the organisation’s management facing intense scrutiny.

Molly Rosenberg will leave her post, which she has held since 2017, at the end of March. The society also announced that its chair, Daljit Nagra, will stand down at an annual general meeting on 15 January, as his four-year term is due to reach its end.

At the AGM, Nagra will introduce the results and recommendations of the society’s first ever governance review, conducted by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations. The review was commissioned last summer, though the RSL said that it has been in the organisation’s plans since 2022.

The RSL told the Guardian that it anticipates sharing some elements of the report publicly, following the AGM. Nagra said that he is proud to have overseen the review and that it will “increase transparency for the future”.

In February 2024, the RSL confirmed that it had referred itself to the Charity Commission after being widely criticised for alleged censorship, changes to the way it elects fellows, and not taking a strong enough stance in response to the stabbing of Salman Rushdie.

Questions of censorship were raised after the publication of the RSL’s annual magazine, Review, was postponed. Its former editor Maggie Fergusson told the Times that she was certain publication was delayed over an article critical of Israel.

In early March, prominent writers including Margaret Atwood, Kazuo Ishiguro and Ian McEwan signed a letter to the Times stating that they were “deeply concerned that senior management, including the present chair and director, have not adequately explained the suspension” of the magazine.

The RSL denied that the article in question was the reason for the delay, saying that there were a “number of issues” with the magazine issue. The society said it published the article “in full” in late March.

The society also came under fire for its response to the attack on Rushdie in August 2022. “The failure of the RSL leadership to give unequivocal support to Salman Rushdie following the brutal attempt on his life was to inhabit a remote moral universe that most of us do not share,” McEwan told the Guardian last year.

In an X post last February, RSL president Bernardine Evaristo highlighted that the society had posted two tweets in support of the writer at the time of the attack. The society added: “The RSL supports you @SalmanRushdie following the horrific attack on your life in 2022 – you had our support then as you do now”.

The society has also been criticised for expanding its fellowship too quickly. In January last year, former president Marina Warner told the Observer that a fellowship “used to mark an acclaimed career”.

In 2018, it appointed 40 new fellows under the age of 40, and in 2022 and 2023, it elected 60 fellows through RSL Open, an initiative aimed at recognising writers from backgrounds underrepresented in UK literary culture.

In December, it launched a new election process, inviting members of the public to recommend writers for fellowship. Recommended writers will be whittled down by a panel made up of 12 fellows and voted on by the council, the vice-presidents, the president and the presidents emeriti.

Responding to criticism in a February 2024 letter to the Guardian, Evaristo wrote: “Even today, only 4% of the fellowship is under 40, while more than 55% of it is over 65 – and more than 34% is over 75. Sidelined? Clearly not.”

The Girl, Woman, Other author also disputed claims that the standards for fellowship had been lowered, arguing that the voting system and the publication requirement for fellows – which are to have published two works of “outstanding literary merit” – have remained the same.

Evaristo has thanked Rosenberg and Nagra for their “immense contribution to the society over many years”.