EXECUTIVE CHANGES: The outdoor conglomerate Columbia Sportswear Company has revealed that certainly one of its key brand leaders is stepping down because of health reasons.

After 16 years with the corporate, Mark Nenow, president of the Sorel brand, has resigned “with a view to deal with his health,” in accordance with an announcement issued by Columbia Friday afternoon.

Last yr he led Sorel to net sales of $347 million, said Columbia Sportswear’s chairman, president and chief executive officer Tim Boyle. “His leadership has been invaluable to this company, and we wish him the perfect.”

During an earnings call last yr, Boyle enthused about how Sorel’s sneaker styles and wedges “contributed to phenomenal demand and brand heat.” As such, Columbia revealed plans to speculate more deeply in product and demand creation with the aim of Sorel becoming a $1 billion brand. At the moment the corporate said it expected Sorel to be its fastest-growing brand, with a 20 percent to 22 percent expected compound annual growth rate over the subsequent three years. That was a key component within the Portland, Oregon-based sportswear company’s goal of adding greater than $700 million in net sales by 2025.

One other in-house executive, Craig Zanon, senior vp of emerging brands, has stepped in to tackle Nenow’s former responsibilities, as the corporate searches for his successor.

Nenow joined the corporate in 2007 to go up its division. Within the years that followed he worked to evolve the Sorel label from a men’s winter work boot specialist to a more fashion-inclined year-round women’s-led brand. He took on the highest leadership job eight years later and zeroed in on the functionality of Sorel’s boots, sandals, sneakers and other styles.

With Nenow on the helm in 2015, the Sorel Capsule Apparel Collection — parkas and jackets for men and ladies — debuted. Lots of the same features found on its line of footwear reminiscent of heavy-duty clasps and triple-sewn stitching were incorporated into the gathering. More recently, Sorel’s headquarters moved right into a single-use constructing on Columbia Sportswear’s most important campus in Washington County in Oregon.