Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz is making the most substantive changes in her exec ranks since she did a massive restructuring of its staff in late February, according to sources close to the situation.

“She is continuing to clean the place up,” said one top exec about the moves, which are likely to be announced internally tomorrow.

Will these changes also extend to Yahoo’s board?

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Yesterday, BoomTown wrote that Yahoo’s SVP North American Audience, Jeff Dossett, was leaving the Internet company after a very short stint there, because of personal reasons.

But I also noted that sources said he was likely to quickly land at a start-up, and in fact, he has resigned from Yahoo to do just that.

Dossett, who came to Yahoo from Microsoft in November, is taking a job as CEO of AdventureLink, an online site aimed at adventure travel and booking such trips.

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Yahoo’s SVP of Northern American Audience, Jeff Dossett, is leaving the company.

Reasons for the departure are personal, said sources, who said that Dossett is most likely to do a start-up.

Dossett did not return emails asking for comment, but Yahoo confirmed his resignation to BoomTown.

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“It’s being changed every minute,” joked one Yahoo source about the reorg now in process at Yahoo, which is being shepherded by new CEO Carol Bartz.

Actually, it’s kind of true, as execs at the troubled Web company are being moved around the board like chess pieces, while others players are added.

According to numerous sources, mostly in Yahoo’s Sunnyvale, Calif. HQ, things are still in flux and not completely settled as yet.

But one thing is clear: Layers are being collapsed quickly, as fewer people are in charge of more, with all roads leading to Bartz.

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Neeraj Khemlani, Yahoo’s general manager and executive editor of news, is set to leave his job–right in the midst of a major restructuring of its media unit–to work at Hearst Corp.

Khemlani’s departure could be announced to his staff at Yahoo as early as today.

While Khemlani was in line to head one of the three main prongs of the new content organization, running a possible network programming arm, sources inside and outside Yahoo said he instead has opted to take a job as VP and Special Assistant to the CEO for Digital Media at Hearst.

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Besides the more massive management reorganization that new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz could announce this week, as BoomTown reported on Friday, the Internet company’s powerful media arm might also see a drastic shift in management structure even sooner.

According to several sources inside the company, U.S. Audience SVP Jeff Dossett has been working on the changes for a while, part of an overall change in how Yahoo makes and delivers content.

Under a plan being considered, the media unit will be split into three parts: vertical programming, network programming and search monetization.

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Several sources inside and outside Yahoo told BoomTown that new Yahoo CEO, Carol Bartz–whom some Yahoos have dubbed “Hurricane Carol”–could be ready to announce a major reorganization of its management structure as early as next week, most likely on Wednesday.

While that shift could be pushed out a week or two or rolled out in pieces, Yahoo execs are nervously awaiting the moves by Bartz to put a new regime in place in order to more easily power through a massive reset of the troubled company.

While many top execs are very much in the dark about what Bartz will do, most expect her to severely roll back a variety of previous reorganizations in favor of a more accountable C-level-style set-up, with execs like a COO, CTO and a new, more powerful CMO (who will also head PR), all reporting to her.

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Will Yahoo’s media properties fall flat with sweeping new changes that are afoot that will drastically change the way the company bakes its content offerings?

Or will the ability to have a single, highly scaleable, centrally developed architecture make the media programming Yahoo delivers more responsive and flexible in the era of fast-twitch bloggers (all while cutting costs)?

According to many sources inside and outside the company, product development for Yahoo’s heavily trafficked media operations–including its powerful News, Finance and Sports sites–is set to be moved under Ash Patel, who is EVP of the company’s Audience Product Division.

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Just after he got the job 10 days ago, BoomTown got the chance to chitty-chat a bit with Scott Moore, the former Yahoo media chief, who is returning to Microsoft, where he will lead its online content efforts for the U.S for its MSN online service.

Apparently, you can go home again!

It’s a touché tale because it feels like Moore was pretty much rehired by MSN exec Greg Nelson (also in on the conversation with Moore) to give Yahoo a wallop where it really will hurt–its powerful content business, one of Yahoo’s only bright spots.

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The game of executive musical chairs among Web companies keeps on going, with sources telling BoomTown that AOL ad head Lynda Clarizio will be departing the online service and be replaced by former high-ranking Yahoo advertising exec Greg Coleman.

The move at AOL, which has been in the works for only a week, could be announced as early as today, although I have been hearing rumors of such a development since late last week.

Both AOL’s content and communications units have been getting an overhaul of late, and now it seems it is time for its lackluster ad business.

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In an unusual homecoming and odd job switcheroo between two Internet execs, former Yahoo media head Scott Moore is returning to Microsoft to lead its content efforts, according to many sources both inside and outside the company.

Moore will become U.S. executive producer, responsible for leading the content and programming strategy for the MSN online service. He will return to Microsoft’s Seattle area HQ in mid-March and report to Greg Nelson, GM of the MSN Global Media Group.

Moore left Yahoo late last year due to unhappiness over the turmoil at the company and to pursue a start-up idea he had.

He was replaced at Yahoo–in a rushed appointment–by Jeff Dossett, who came, wait for it, from Microsoft, where he held the job Moore is now taking.

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As BoomTown reported earlier today in detail, Yahoo will announce its layoffs on Wednesday, as planned, of at least 1,500 employees. But many staff have also been leaving Yahoo on their own, including one recent high-profile departure–now former Yahoo Media Group SVP Scott Moore. Here’s my version on an exit interview with Moore, which I did at his Yahoo going-away party last week in Santa Monica.

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Yahoo–which has stuck to its guns by staying in the search business, even though many think it is a losing game and should be sold off to Microsoft–has lost a key engineer in that arena to–uh-oh–Microsoft.

Sean Suchter, the VP of Search Technology at Yahoo, was also deeply involved in Yahoo’s efforts to open up its search platform, initiatives the company has touted aggressively as a bright spot in its not-so-lustrous landscape.

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Here’s my favorite quote from former Microsoft exec Jeff Dossett from a phone interview he gave to BoomTown this afternoon, after his appointment as Yahoo’s new U.S. Audience head:

“Where others see risk, I see opportunity,” said the man who has climbed Mount Everest twice. “We have this great Web asset … and, from here on out, it is all about execution.”

You can tell from the gumption in this ain’t-no-mountain-high-enough sentiment that Dossett just got to Yahoo and sees a challenge at the troubled Internet giant where others see, well, a long-running quagmire.

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About a month ago, BoomTown reported that MSN executive producer and general manager Jeff Dossett was contemplating joining Yahoo.

Microsoft released a statement that day saying Dossett was indeed stepping down from his MSN duties, as I had posted, but noted that he was staying put at the software giant.

Oops, it looks like I was right in my report: “The Secret Microsoft Invasion of Yahoo Continues: MSN GM Headed There Soon?”

Dossett has accepted a job as SVP, U.S. Audience at Yahoo, Yahoo said this afternoon, while also confirming my previous report that Yahoo Media Group head Scott Moore was departing.

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