Few women have joined or founded startups and gained the kind of experience that enables their careers to explode like Marissa Mayer’s. Here are recommendations on accelerating the pace of women in high-tech.

By Jack Hidary & Cindy Padnos (Contributors, Fortune)

The announcement Monday that Yahoo! selected Marissa Mayer as its new chief is a great signal for Silicon Valley. Marissa joined Google as its 20th employee back in 1999 when it was a fledgling company and had an uncertain future. Historically, few women joined or founded startups and gained the kind of experience that enabled Marissa Mayer and Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook to rise to their positions of responsibility. Yet, we are now seeing some positive signs.

Across the US, we are seeing more and more tech startups co-founded or run by women. These include: Silver Tail, One King’s Lane, CloudFlare, Get Satisfaction and AllVoices on the West Coast. On the East Coast there has also been an explosion of women-led startups: Birchbox, Kollabora, iRobot, Chomp, Blip, and Hunch just to name a few.

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Photo credit: Asa Mathat