In exactly one week at 10 am PDT, Yahoo will hold its annual meeting in Silicon Valley, the first time when new CEO Carol Bartz will greet its shareholders in person.

She should prep carefully, as the event has been quite a drama over the last two years.

Here’s a rundown of what is likely to be on the minds of investors, including the status of the isn’t-it-rich-aren’t-they-a-pair relationship between Yahoo and Microsoft.

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It looks like two years of relentless controversy and company upheaval have sent Yahoo’s former PR person back into the arms of a retail outfit.

Jill Nash, who said she was leaving Yahoo in early February, will be taking the top PR job at San Francisco-based Levi Strauss & Co., where the former Gap exec will get the title of chief communications officer and VP of corporate affairs.

Of course, given the tough retail market these days, life at the jeans manufacturer isn’t going to be all worn-in comfort either.

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My favorite anecdote collected so far about new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz is the one in which she called together two separate groups of execs who were direct reports of former Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and President Sue Decker.

Bartz, several sources recounted, went around the table and asked them one by one what they actually did, making various outspoken comments along the way about management.

Stories like this about Bartz’s take-charge style have been ricocheting through Yahoo as she navigates the troubled company to come up with a plan to revive it.

But of all the various things many employees I have talked to hope she does first is dump the “matrix” organizational structure that many at Yahoo have grown to despise.

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Jill Nash, Yahoo’s chief communications officer, has told CEO Carol Bartz and other Yahoo staff this afternoon that she is leaving the company.

Nash, sources said, told staff that she does not have any plans to move to another company immediately, so the reasons for her departure are unclear.

BoomTown would have to guess that Nash is simply completely spent from her past two years at Yahoo, which have been very fraught from a public relations perspective, to say the least.

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With Yahoo earnings expected to be dismal when the company reports fourth-quarter earnings this Tuesday afternoon, new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz is going to have to hang tough.

And she certainly seems capable of that. At her first all-hands meeting, Bartz said, according to one report others have since confirmed to BoomTown, that she would “drop-kick to f***ing Mars” employees who leak to the press.

That threat sent little shivers up BoomTown’s spine too, which is why it must have taken so long for her first-week missive to Yahoo staff worldwide to get to my inbox.

Well played, Ms. Bartz, well played.

But turnabout is also fair play…

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It took a lot of guts for Yahoo President Sue Decker to resign immediately yesterday and without the usual polite waiting period that happens in most major corporate management shifts.

In doing so, Decker left new CEO Carol Bartz with the cleanest slate she could.

It would be nice, then, if the man who was also just as, if not much more, responsible for the disaster that has been Yahoo for too long–Chairman Roy Bostock–would take a clue from Decker and outgoing CEO Jerry Yang and head out the door too.

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It looks like Carol Bartz will be taking on the thankless role as new Yahoo CEO.

Sources close to the situation told BoomTown–which had first named the former Autodesk CEO the top pick for the top job at the troubled Internet company last week–that Bartz has been approved for the job by the Yahoo board and has accepted it.

The Wall Street Journal is also reporting the move.

But can the experienced tech exec turn Yahoo around?

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There it was again–like the gnarly ghost of Christmas past–in the Los Angeles Times this week. But this time Lloyd Braun wasn’t going to take it anymore. The object of his ire was dropped right in the middle of a blog post about how Yahoo was “reversing its Hollywoodification” at its Santa Monica media unit offices. The piece also included old allegations from a devastating story in November of 2005 about Braun, which made him look like a digital version of Ari Gold from “Entourage.” Unfortunately, as BoomTown has found out, the bulk of those juicy anecdotes about him don’t actually check out. And therein lies a complex tale that still reverberates at Yahoo today.

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Yahoo is losing yet another top executive–Toby Coppel, its EVP and managing director of Europe and Canada, is set to announce today that he is stepping down.

The departure, which has been in the works for months, is not related to the recent news that Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang is also relinquishing his job as soon as the company completes its search for another CEO.

His successor will be Rich Riley, who is currently SVP of Europe’s Advertiser & Publisher Group, which put him in charge of all revenues for the division.

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Yesterday, after the news got out that Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang was stepping down from his job and that a search was on for a new CEO, BoomTown got inundated with reaction from everyone from readers of this blog to Internet players to Yahoo employees.

In fact, my single favorite quote came from one Yahoo staffer: “You can kick this dog, but it still barks.”

Grrrrr…this and some Yahoo myths explored within.

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Obviously, the dream CEO for Yahoo is News Corp. President and COO Peter Chernin.

And, no surprise, he is the No. 1 choice of most inside and outside Yahoo in the wake of the news late yesterday that its current CEO and Co-Founder Jerry Yang is stepping down.

Well, Yahoo would certainly be a challenge for Chernin, in terms of a corporate cleanup challenge, especially compared to figuring out how to make bank on plush toys from “The Simpsons.”

But there are many other contenders for the job, despite the slog it could be. Here’s BoomTown’s list…

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Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang will step down from his job as CEO, said sources close to the company, as soon as the board finds a replacement for him, in what sources close to the situation call a joint decision by him and the directors.

Yahoo will announce the move later today. [UPDATED: Yahoo has since confirmed the move.]

Yahoo has hired Heidrick & Struggles, the well-known executive search firm, to vet candidates, both internally and externally, to take over the top spot at the troubled Internet giant.

Sources said it is unlikely current Yahoo President Sue Decker will get the job, which is more likely to go to an outsider.

Some BoomTown choices: News Corp. COO Peter Chernin, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman or former Yahoo COO Dan Rosensweig.

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Is it just me or does the dire situation of Grizabella the Glamour Cat in the musical “Cats” remind you a little bit too much of what’s been going on with Yahoo and its CEO Jerry Yang over the last year?

Thus, BoomTown has decided to make that scraggly cat’s anthem Yahoo’s for its annual meeting tomorrow, because the similarities are simply startling.

(Grizabella’s signature song, “Memory” is even wildly purplish, just like the Internet company!)

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It is not exactly news that influential major Yahoo investor Gordon Crawford was displeased with Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, given the amount of money Crawford must have lost by now, backing the troubled Internet company.

What effect that will have on Yang, though, will probably be negligible–except for perhaps feeling badly, as he has great regard for Crawford–because I think he has never been more determined to stay put.

In fact, I predict a series of partnerships and high-profile announcements–starting this week ahead of the annual meeting–to give Yahoo and Yang an image of momentum he dearly needs.

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Jeff Weiner, as BoomTown reported in a story broken by BoomTown Tuesday and also yesterday, will be leaving Yahoo to become an entrepreneur in residence at both Accel Partners and Greylock Partners.

But, despite a lot of speculation, sources at the company said that Weiner will not likely be replaced as Network division head by one of his four direct reports.

Instead, sources at the company think much of Weiner’s organization could be headed by Hilary Schneider, who is EVP Global Partner Solutions, in order to better align Yahoo’s ad revenue-producing units with its products, software, search and services side.

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