Sophia Amoruso Out As CEO At NastyGal

Amoruso, author of #GirlBoss and founder/CEO of fast-growing trashy-chic e-commerce company NastyGal, announced to her staff on Monday that she is stepping down as CEO.

According to Re/code:

Amoruso, who said in an interview with Re/code that the decision was hers alone, will stay on at Nasty Gal as executive chairman and remain a daily presence at the company leading its creative and brand marketing teams in a full-time capacity.

“While I find myself really capable of leading our customer,” Amoruso said, she thought the company needed a CEO with operational expertise and the ability to take Nasty Gal to the next level of maturity.

Sheree Waterson, currently president of NastyGal, will be stepping into Amoruso’s CEO position. (Waterson was formerly Chief Product Officer at Lululemon, and was fired during the sheer yoga pants debacle of 2013.) The restructuring follows a very touch-and-go year for a company whose brand recognition stems in many ways from its unlikely and meteoric success (and the book that was written about it). This past summer, after years of growth caused sales to exceed $100 million, the company laid off approximately 10% of its staff—there are whispers that the layoffs were much worse than reported, and of a very toxic work environment—as profits began to plateau.

Waterson told Re/code: “I actually see myself as support to Sophia so we can unleash her genius. Taking over the operation of the company allows Sophia to be out and connecting the brand with our customer and all the other amazing people she meets.”

Amoruso, who has been running the company for eight years (she launched NastyGal at 22 as a vintage shop on eBay), has caught the eye of the media partially due to the fact that she’s not your average polished, peplum’d Corporate Female a la Sheryl Sandberg: she’s a former shoplifter and community college dropout with no formal business training who is—I can attest—absolutely terrible at public speaking. Amoruso penned a blog post yesterday explaining the decision, emphasizing that she’s not going anywhere:

My entire youth has been Nasty Gal. My entire future is Nasty Gal. This is a choice that will give our team, and our business, legs. And it will give me the freedom to feel that I’m using my talents at my best and highest. And for Sheree, this will unleash her incredible talent and leadership across an organization that has never been so ready.