Larry Yu leaves Facebook for the Pramana Collective

Yu will become a partner at the communications consultancy

Facebook is losing its long-time communications director, Larry Yu.

Yu, who is leaving the company to join the Pramana Collective, a communications consultancy, as a partner, made the announcement via a message on his Facebook wall on Monday.

"Nearly five years ago, I joined some friends at a privately-held company called Facebook to help a small team scale and expand upon the company’s story. That journey was, in a word, crazy. And fun. Terrifying. And gratifying. So I’m off to do it again. I’m joining my friends Brandee, Brian and Sean to help build The Pramana Collective, a project-focused communications consultancy that works with cool companies," Yang wrote.

Not much seems to be known about the Pramana Collective at this point. A Google search did not yield much information (it does not even seem to have a website) except for an overview of the firm done by AllThingsD when it debuted in March.

Pramana was founded eight weeks ago by three communications executives: Sean Garrett, the former head of of public relations at Twitter; Brandee Barker, former head of public relations at Facebook; and Brian O’Shaughnessy, who led communications at Skype.

Here is how Garrett explained the firm's mission in a blog post at the time:

"The Pramana Collective is a project-focused communications consultancy. This means that we will work with an organization to help meet a specific opportunity or solve a particular issue for a finite period of time. Among the offering mix will be branding, messaging, campaign development, and road mapping communications functions. This is the type of work that Brandee and I have both enjoyed doing as consultants since Facebook and Twitter."

Garrett gave some more information about why Yu has decided to join Pramanda, what his role will be in the firm and when he will officially be coming to work, in a blogpost Monday.

"Brian, Brandee and I have all worked with Larry in the past, and we know that his close-to-20 years of experience is a perfect fit for The Pramana Collective and our clients. Beyond being a thoughtful guy who is universally liked and respected, Larry knows how to navigate companies through chaotic growth stages with confidence and calm. And we all admire how he makes financials, process and operations look easy, maybe even fun (well, almost)," Garrett wrote.

"We look forward to Larry joining us in June and talking to others who may help fill out our office space and shape our direction."

Prior to his work at Facebook, Yu had worked for both Google and Cisco. 

"To the amazing people that I was fortunate enough to work with during my time at Facebook -- thank you. You’ve taught me so much and I’ll be forever grateful. I could go on, but then I’d be a blubbering mess. So I’ll just say that I am proud to be affiliated with such a remarkable company. And I won’t be far, so this isn’t goodbye. It’s see you around," he wrote.

(Image source: https://www.businessinsider.com)