“We are removing this layer. There will be no backfill of this position,” Tom Kingsbury, chief executive officer of Kohl’s, said on the company’s earnings call Tuesday.

The company announced Alves’ departure in a securities filing on Monday. In a statement, a company representative said he was “leaving to pursue other opportunities.”

On Tuesday, Kingsbury said he had the opportunity to evaluate the structure of the company’s leadership since taking over as CEO in December 2022.

“Now that I’ve been on the job for a year, I understand what we need as a company, and I decided to execute it,” Kingsbury said.

Alves had named to the president and COO role in February.

“I’ve been very, very involved in the move to reestablish our stores as the focal point of the company’s strategy and, based on this, wanted a closer reporting relationship to the stores organization,” Kingsbury said. “Similar, I felt it was important to have the supply chain organization reporting to me.”

In September, Kohl’s named Fred Hand as director of stores and senior executive vice president. He previously was a top executive at Burlington Stores while Kingsbury was chief executive officer of that retailer.

“We know what each other needs in order to really run the stores organization,” Kingsbury said.

While stores and supply chain functions will report to Kingsbury, other leaders will oversee other functions handled by Alves, including real estate, purchasing, risk management and strategy.

“I think it will give us more speed in terms of doing the things we want to accomplish,” Kingsbury said. “If we want to get back to positive in 2024, we have to move with a lot of speed.”