In a week when the leadership of both McLachlan and his chairman Mike Fitzpatrick has come into question the AFL's reputation as a champion of gender change has been further damaged by the expected departure of another senior woman, Maree Mamo, who has been on stress leave.

Mamo, who came to the AFL from Coles early last year on a hefty package, heads the AFL's customer experience and has come under fire. Notably for the problems facing AusKick this year, for which participation rates fell in Victoria for the first time. She has not been at work in recent weeks.

Fairfax Media understands the timing of Hisgrove's resignation announcement coincided with a move to reduce her role in the organisation and cut the hundreds of staff who reported to her. That restructure will be announced to club chiefs on Wednesday.

McLachlan delivered the news of Hisgrove's departure to staff on Monday just 14 months after she had unveiled her new gender vision for the competition which would place more women in positions of influence. Several other members of the generously remunerated team Hisgrove brought into the AFL are also expected to depart. McLachlan's restructure is expected to adress his lack of a key operational officer, a role that he filled so strongly for Andrew Demetriou.

While she was appointed by Andrew Demetriou, Hisgrove's powerful role was shaped by McLachlan. He told staff on Monday that he hoped she would remain connected to the industry but would depart the AFL in September and vacate her current duties immediately.

Hisgrove becomes the third female head of the AFL's human resources to depart the organisation disenchanted. At a time when AFL clubs are increasingly placing women in executive roles, she remains only the second female executive at head office. The AFL's own organisation now lags behind a growing number of its one-time boys' clubs.

Hisgrove replaced Christina Ogg in the role who left after the controversial removal of key AFL strategist Andrew Catterall. The AFL later settled a $200,000 bullying claim against Catterall. Feisty, intelligent and driven, Hisgrove won the position ahead of the popular internal candidate Sue Clark who has since returned to a senior role at Victoria Police.

But Hisgrove openly clashed with a number of staff, several of whom complained about her management style and impossibly vast portfolio which saw her in charge of not only human resources but the game's development and media departments.

According to the AFL's national management structure, more than 350 staff reported to Hisgrove, with McLachlan's move to place her at the head of the communications team as well as marketing a source of some concern.

Late last year, the AFL was taken to the Fair Work Commission by its media department whose staff successfully argued they were journalists and not sporting clerks. Hisgrove also notably clashed with the league's long-serving and now departed finance boss Ian Anderson regarding internal spending and staffIng.

Hisgrove was also chair of AFL Tasmania and sat on the game's recently formed Indigenous Advisory Board. That position also raised eyebrows after Hisgrove oversaw the removal of the league's diversity talent manager, the Brisbane triple-premiership player, Chris Johnson last October.

She was appointed at the start of this year alongside football boss Mark Evans to oversee McLachlan's nationwide on and off-field review of the game, a review which stalled briefly before another executive Simon Lethlean stepped in to handle the logistics of the review.

In May 2014, Hisgrove told Fairfax Media that a top-order priority was to create an AFL female advisory board citing Richmond president Peggy O'Neal and respected CEO director Judith Slocombe as two key candidates. That board has never materialised.

As recently as May this year, McLachlan took a subtle swipe at Hisgrove's critics during his speech at the AFL's women's industry lunch, lauding her performance and saying that sometimes the role as an "agent of change" was a challenging one.

McLachlan in April was appointed one of 19 male champions of change in the workplace by Human Rights Commissioner Kate Jenkins. With a major restructure of his executive to be unveiled this week, McLachlan would not comment on whether any executive roles would be filled by women. Nor would the AFL comment on Mamo's future in the organisation.

Hisgrove's portfolio, previously overseen by three general managers, was expected to be reduced in the reshuffle, a move which reportedly did not sit well with the game's only female department boss.

Clubs and AFL staff and bosses remained divided as to the reasons behind Hisgrove's failure to thrive in the male-dominated leadership structure. One strong school of thought was that her management style saw her clash with both male and female employees while an equally strong view was that Hisgrove was ill-fated from the outset given her multiple portfolios and the size of her task.

The internal view was that Hisgrove, as historically the most powerful woman, and a rarity in the organisation, had to be a success. Whether or not her gender contributed to her downfall has been a matter of debate from the commission down.

But the fact that the AFL championed Hisgrove as a change agent and that she could not deliver on a number of ambitious promises, many of them involving women, must be a source of great disappointment to McLachlan. This marks the end of the worst seven days for the AFL chief since he took on the job.