It’s been a rocky few months at online footwear retailer Zappos.
Fred Mossler, a 17-year veteran of the company, announced in a company-wide email sent last week that he would be stepping down from his position to focus on other endeavors, such as the Downtown Project, a private fund created by Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh to revitalize downtown Las Vegas.
“I wanted to send out a brief note to let you know I’ve decided it’s time for me to leave Zappos,” Mossler wrote in an email obtained by Fortune. “I’ve spent almost seventeen years with Zappos and have seen it grow from a two-bedroom apartment to the amazing company it is today. There are not words that can describe what this company has and what the people in it have meant to me and the appreciation I have for the opportunities I’ve had throughout the years.”
Mossler, who has no official title as per Zappos company policy, leaves a time when the e-retailer has instituted major structural changes to its internal business model, which has resulted in nearly one-third of its employees leaving the company in the last year.
Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh totally reorganized the company two years ago when he introduced holocracy, a non-hierarchical business model that disposes of formal titles and allows people to manage themselves. Results have been mixed. Last year the company fell off Fortune’s ranking of the 100 Best Companies to Work For after having been on the list for seven consecutive years.
While it’s unclear if holocracy has anything to do with Mossler’s exit, publicly he touted its values.
“I’ll be working with my lead links over the next six weeks to transition my roles to a distributed set of people,” he wrote. “Prior to implementing Holacracy I would have been concerned about my absence leaving gaps in the organization, but due to my roles being clearly defined, the transition will be a lot easier than it would have been prior to Holacracy.”