A new group has been formed for Israeli women in the hi-tech and web industries. The group, F5 Refreshing (get it? F5 is the button your press to refresh your browser) is sponsored by Sun Microsystems' Sun Startup Essentials department, and is organized by Liat Vardi. The first event will take place on June 26 at a loft in Tel Aviv. The agenda includes dinner, networking, and a short lecture by yours truly on Using Blogs and SEO to Promote your Business. For more information and to register, visit Liat's blog here. You can also see the facebook event here. Hope to see ...

Two separate studies conducted on the topic of women's impact on businesses - one in Europe and one in the US - indicate that having women at the top of a company is good for the bottom line: McKinsey research released a study showing better-than-average financial performance by European companies with the highest proportion of women in influential leadership roles. The study found that these companies do better than their sector in terms of return on equity, operating result and share price growth. The management consulting firm also reports that companies around the world where a third or more of the senior team are women score higher, on average, than ...