Jeff Blackburn, one of Jeff Bezos' top advisors, is leaving Amazon

• Amazon SVP Jeff Blackburn, one of CEO Jeff Bezos' top advisors, is leaving the company.
• Blackburn has been at Amazon for 22 years, and has led its Prime Video and Amazon Studio divisions.
• This comes the same year Amazon is losing consumer chief Jeff Wilke.

One of Amazon's top executives has announced he's leaving the company.

Amazon SVP Jeff Blackburn sent an internal memo on Tuesday announcing his departure from the company. The memo, obtained by CNBC, was sent to Amazon's elite "S-Team" group of executives.

Blackburn, who has been on sabbatical for the past year, has been at Amazon for 22 years and held a range of positions, including heading up the company's Prime Studios division.

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His departure comes after CEO Jeff Bezos said he would hand over his post to cloud computing boss Andy Jassy in Q3 of this year and become chairman.

Bezos' number two, Amazon's head of consumer business Jeff Wilke, announced in January that he was retiring.

"Wilke's retirement meant one less Jeff, and today, I'm taking it down to just the original," Blackburn said in his memo.

CNBC also obtained Bezos' reply to Blackburn's memo. "From marketplace and advertising to the launch of Prime Video and Amazon Studios, you've been a builder. And you've helped all of us in everything - not just the things you directly led," Bezos said.

Blackburn did not say what he would do after leaving Amazon, although he appears to have shared his plans with Bezos.

"Though it's not quite ready to be shared, jblack [Blackburn's nickname inside Amazon] has kept me in the loop on his next chapter, and I can assure you it's a very exciting one!," Bezos wrote.