The head of Yahoo Inc's news and information division has jumped ship to Hearst Corp, as speculation mounts that the Internet company is on the brink of a major management reorganization.

Hearst said on Monday that Neeraj Khemlani will join the newspaper and magazine publisher in March as vice president and special assistant to the chief executive for digital media.

Khemlani will report directly to Hearst CEO Frank Bennack Jr., and be responsible for promoting and coordinating digital content transformation across Hearst, which owns 16 daily newspapers and more than 200 magazines, including Esquire and Cosmopolitan.

His departure from Yahoo comes as the No. 2 Internet search company is expected to soon unveil a broad reshuffling of its management structure under Carol Bartz, who took the reins as CEO in January.

Bartz, in her weekly memo to staff on Friday, told employees to rest up as the coming week would be a biggie. The AllThingsDigital blog said a reorganization could be announced as early as Wednesday.

Khemlani, a former producer for CBS News' 60 Minutes program, was considered a likely candidate to head up one of Yahoo's three key divisions within the media group under the new organization structure, according to the blog.

A Yahoo representative was not immediately available for comment.

Yahoo's stock was down 6 cents at $12.08 in afternoon trade on the Nasdaq.

(Reporting by Alexei Oreskovic; Editing by Bernard Orr)

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