Snapchat’s chief operating officer Emily White has left the ephemeral app maker, not long after CEO Evan Spiegel said he wants to have a more hands-on approach towards the running of the company and in the wake of receiving $200 million funding from Alibaba, which valued the company at $15 billion.

The departure has been confirmed by the company but no reason was given: “Emily is a talented executive and we thank her for her many contributions to Snapchat,” it said in a statement.

She is now the third senior executive to leave the four-year-old startup in the last two months, along with sales head Mike Randall and HR overseer Sara Sperling.

White had joined Snapchat last year, after leaving Instagram.

Last week, Spiegel met with Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who owns 95 per cent of investment holding company Kingdom Holding, to talk about “future potential business cooperation in the technology field.”