Mayer's pregnancy is a first for techs "Another piece of good news today," tweeted Marissa Mayer, just hours after news of her appointment as Yahoo's chief executive broke. She and her husband, Zack Bogue, a tech investor, are expecting their first child in October. Ms Mayer told Fortune that none of Yahoo's directors expressed concern about the pregnancy when she told them last month, after being approached by headhunters for the role. "They showed their evolved thinking," she said. My maternity leave will be a few weeks long and I'll work throughout it. The fact that Ms Mayer's appointment during her pregnancy is a first for the technology sector highlights how under-represented women still are in Silicon Valley. Women fill only 17 per cent of technical jobs at start-ups that are five years old, and 25 per cent of all computing jobs, according to the National Center for Women & Information Technology. "It's a testament to how highly [Yahoo's board] regard her," said Lucy Marcus, a corporate governance expert and chief executive of Marcus Venture Consulting. I do think that they must see in her something really special and think that she is going to be exactly what they need. Ms Marcus, herself a parent with a young son, said that she had "no qualms" about appointing a pregnant chief executive, especially given she had a husband and could afford help with caring for the baby, and suggested the experience could make her more focused. She was given the choice - it was her decision to take. She is an achieving person. She's not going to take up a post if she doesn't think she can do it. Part of what happens with women in the workplace is people hesitate to offer them something because they assume for them that they are not going to take it up, and they cut them off. Ms Mayer was Google's first female engineer when she joined the search company in 1999, and she now faces the bigger challenge of turning round Yahoo and taking both employees and customers with her as she does so. "My biggest concern is that she is able to wrap her mind and her arms around this organisation and the ecosystem," Ms Marcus said. She has to do it fast. This gives her a deadline. Baby and Yahoo should both be coming out and looking good by October.