The identity used to send the announcement mail can be customized. It can be either a member of the <developers> section of the POM or it can be specified explicitly with the <mailSender> parameter of the plugin.
To specify which developer is used to send the announcement, simply specify the id of the developer as in the example below:
<project>
<developers>
...
<developer>
<id>jsmith</id>
<name>John Smith</name>
<email>jsmith@foo.bar</email>
</developer>
...
</developers>
...
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-changes-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.12.1</version>
<configuration>
<fromDeveloperId>jsmith</fromDeveloperId>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
...
</project>
If no developer id is specified, the first <developer> in the list will be used.
You can also do this from the command line, if the person doing the release changes between releases.
mvn -Dchanges.fromDeveloperId=jsmith changes:announcement-mail
If you want to specify the sender explicitly and not rely on the developers section of your POM, define the mailSender parameter of the plugin.
<project>
...
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-changes-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.12.1</version>
<configuration>
<mailSender>
<name>Release Notification</name>
<email>noreply@foo.bar</email>
</mailSender>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
...
</project>