THE AFL moved swiftly to replace Mark Evans, naming Simon Lethlean as the new general manager of football operations on Thursday.

The 41-year-old takes the position vacated by Evans, who earlier this week took over as the chief executive at Gold Coast.

A longtime AFL executive and a former lawyer, Lethlean moves into the role on the back of the stunning success of the first season of the NAB AFL Women's league, which was built from scratch in less than 12 months.

As the AFL's head of game development, Lethlean was charged with starting the new league this year, after AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan brought forward the start date from 2020.

Lethlean will retain overall management responsibility for AFLW, which will be run by the League's football operations department from now.

Several other key indicators for game development also improved under Lethlean's watch in the two years he held that role.

Before that he spent several years as AFL's general manager of broadcasting and fixturing.

Lethlean played 40 games for Hawthorn reserves in 1994 and 1995, having joined the club straight from Camberwell Grammar. He later was involved with powerful amateur club, Old Xaverians, where he played in and coached premiership teams. He also coached the Victorian Amateur Football Association's representative team in 2014.