Women continue to be heavily outnumbered by men in the technology workplace and still need to contend with lingering perceptions about their abilities, the panelists said. As a result, they need to not only constantly push themselves forward but also find someone who can help them.

Women need to take ownership of the value they bring to the organization, said Beth Renstrom, a senior manager of product management at Oracle development who has more than 17 years of experience in IT. "Take ownership of what you have done and make sure you are letting people know what you have accomplished," she said.

It's also important for a woman in IT to find someone to mentor and sponsor her within the organization, said Helen Berg, vice president of consulting with Hitachi Consulting. "It is great to have people promote you," he said. "If you have someone run interference for you, someone greasing the skids, it can be good (for your career)."

Berg said that in her case, when she took a director role at her previous organization, a woman who was doing the hiring actively promoted Berg throughout the organization by talking about the things she could do. "So she was a very strong sponsor for me," Berg said.

The same thing happened when Berg was running a very large project, and a senior C-level executive of the company, a male this time, actively promoted her work, she said.