Yahoo! Labs Head Leaving 'for Google'

Prabhakar Raghavan - the head of the Yahoo! Labs research unit - is leaving the company, reportedly to join Google, in advance of a 'large-scale restructure', which reports say will result in 'significant layoffs' across the firm's PR, marketing and research teams.

Raghavan (pictured) oversees Yahoo! Labs, which was established to focus on advertising and audience sciences, along with data-driven analysis and economic models. Last year, the company launched AdLabs, with the aim of accelerating innovation in digital ad products, and tapping into the services offered by the Yahoo! Labs unit.

During his time with the firm, Raghavan has focused on search technologies, such as text and web mining, and algorithm design. He is a consulting professor of Computer Science at Stanford University and prior to joining Yahoo! worked as CTO at Verity and in a number of technical and managerial positions at IBM Research.

His departure will follow the exit of other Yahoo! directors including founder Jerry Yang, Chairman Roy Bostock, and CEO Carol Bartz.

According to online publication All Things Digital, Raghavan is leaving the company to take an unspecified job at Google. He will be replaced by CTO Ash Munishi.

In a statement, Yahoo! thanked Raghavan for his 'dedication and contributions' during the past seven years.