diff --git a/MAINTAINERS b/MAINTAINERS
index ff8408874..7aedd46e9 100644
--- a/MAINTAINERS
+++ b/MAINTAINERS
@@ -11,7 +11,6 @@
 [Org]
 	[Org."Core maintainers"]
 		people = [
-			"dnephin",
 			"mefyl",
 			"mnottale",
 			"shin-",
@@ -30,6 +29,11 @@
 			# in 2015 with solid bugfixes and improved error handling
 			# among them
 			"mnowster",
+			# Daniel Nephin is one of the longest-running maitainers on
+			# the Compose project, and has contributed several major features
+			# including muti-file support, variable interpolation, secrets
+			# emulation and many more
+			"dnephin",
 		]
 
 [people]