Spokane's Ambassadors Group’s President and CEO Jeff Thomas, and his wife, Margaret Thomas, the company’s executive vice president, announced they are leaving the company.

Jeff Thomas has been head of the publicly traded company since 1996. Ambassadors runs the student-focused travel program People to People. Last year the company arranged education tours for 21,200 travelers, compared with nearly 24,000 in 2011.

The resignations are effective immediately, the company said in a release.

Anthony Dombrowik, senior vice president and chief financial officer, is interim chief executive offficer. The board of directors has said it will start a search for a new CEO.

The company has offices near the Spokane Airport.

According to the company’s 2012 proxy statement, the most recent available, Jeff Thomas’s total compensation in 2011 was $775,031. Margaret Thomas’s total compensation during that period was $455,031.

Spokane-based Ambassadors Group will pay a group of investors roughly $7.5 million to settle a class-action suit claiming the company engaged in securities fraud.

The suit was originally filed in 2009 in Spokane’s federal district court, with a New Jersey electrical workers pension fund as the lead plaintiff. A year later the suit was amended, with the national Plumbers Union Local No. 12 pension fund becoming the lead plaintiff in a class action suit.

After going through federal mediation, the parties signed the settlement last week, said Ambassadors Group CEO and President Jeff Thomas.

The suit alleged that some Ambassadors executives intentionally misled investors about the company’s weak finances during 2007, when the stock price fell by 40 percent. Company executives also sold stock worth more than $7 million during that period, the suit alleged.

In announcing the settlement Ambassadors made no admission of wrongdoing.

The money for the settlement will be paid by Ambassador Group’s insurance companies, said Tony Dombrowik, the company’s CFO.