20 women Silicon Valley tech companies should be adding to their boards

When it comes to women in tech, people make all kinds of excuses from a broken pipeline to not wanting to "lower" their standards to bring women onto the team.

Finding women to add to a company's board is even harder since the job listings aren't posted publicly and advertised widely to attract a diverse network, says Sukihnder Singh Cassidy, CEO of Joyus and founder of theBoardlist.

"When a board seat opens, the typical process is that a CEO will turn to their few, most trusted peers for recommendations of potential board members, who in turn give recommendations of their few, most trusted peers," Singh Cassidy told Business Insider. "Because our closest networks are usually very similar to ourselves, this process doesn't necessarily yield a lot of diversity - not only of gender or race, but educational background, functional expertise or industry. While there may be no intent to actively exclude any group, this lack of diversity in networks means that opportunities aren't exposed to a broader pool of talent."

She started theBoardlist, a LinkedIn-like network that specifically recommends highly-qualified women in tech to take seats on company boards, to abolish any excuse that there aren't highly-qualified women able to join a company's board.

In honor of Ada Lovelace Day, theBoardlist shared with Business Insider the list of some of the top women in tech that should be on a Silicon Valley tech board right now, as nominated by its community.

Here's the list of the 20 of the top women and what expertise each woman can add to a startup: