According to a 2023 report from MIT, women occupy only 28% of jobs in STEM fields. Not only that, but they’ve been quiet quitting and leaning out for several years now. Despite a recent tech boom in Canada, women still face a gender pay gap of $20,000 per year in the industry.
These grim statistics are what inspired April Hicke and Marissa McNeelands to cofound Toast, Canada’s first female-focused talent partner aimed at placing women in tech companies. Toast is backed by the federal government to help organizations who have tagged gender diversity to their ESG reporting for 2024. Although they only launched in 2022, Toast already boasts over 6,000 women and 70 partner organizations in Calgary, Vancouver and Toronto. They will launch U.S. operations in 2024.
What sets them apart is how Toast partners with companies keen to diversify their tech teams, providing a unique AI-driven recruitment tool free from gender and socioeconomic biases. When Toast presents candidates, they remove the names of the individuals (eliminating gender and racial bias), the companies previously worked for (since for people with foreign work experience, this introduces bias), and the schools attended (as this introduces socioeconomic bias). Toast has received serious press attention for their efforts, with coverage in The Globe and Mail, BNN Bloomberg, and The Financial Post.
“Our algorithms are meticulously trained on diverse datasets, challenging the status quo of male-dominated tech industries and fostering a more inclusive workforce,” said McNeelands, Toast’s cofounder and CEO, in an exclusive interview with me. She holds a master’s degree in AI, and built the algorithms used by Toast herself.
Furthermore, Toast runs a membership collective aimed at eliminating the “lonely only” syndrome, helping women in tech find mentorship, support, and growth opportunities. “Toast is more than a career platform—it is a movement towards gender equity in tech,” says Hicke. “It was born out of a genuine need to diversify technical teams. Really, we are trying to level the playing field for women and change the way people look at hiring. We are not just helping women land tech jobs; we are ensuring they rise and thrive in them.”
McNeelands adds, “Toast help women in tech get the jobs they want, the pay they deserve, and a community that supports them. We do this by creating a safe online space for women to transparently discuss salary, refer each other, and lean on each other while navigating the career journey. Ultimately, we give voice to the cognitive dissonance that women experience working in a field so vastly dominated by men.”
Hicke says adversity gave her the mantra that she now lives by: “We were given this baggage to show others how it can be unpacked.” She grew up without much support or mentorship. When she took on her first leadership role at work in her late twenties, she decided that she wanted women never to feel as unsupported as she did. “I use my own experience, strength and hope to support and elevate other women,” she says.
The biggest challenges they face, McNeelands says, are encouraging more girls to pursue STEM in school and creating a workforce environment where women’s skills are valued at the same level as their male peers. “Sometimes the slow pace of progress can be frustrating,” she explains. “When you do something that you are so passionate about, the stakes are very high. A bad day at Toast doesn’t just impact me or my team, but it feels like it impacts all the women in tech looking to us to make a change.”
That said, both cofounders find their work extremely rewarding. “Living into exactly who I was meant to be every day is the greatest feeling,” says Hicke. “This is my dream job. Not only do we get to make a difference in the lives of women, but we are actually driving systemic change in an industry that is ripe with bias and stigmas.”
To women looking to make it in STEM jobs, McNeelands offers this advice. “If you can’t find the right opportunity, create it. If you aren’t feeling fulfilled, dig into why and seek out others. By giving voice to how you are feeling, you will probably find that there are others in the same spot. We can’t sit back and wait for the systems to change for us. We have to change them.”
“Anything is possible,” adds Hicke. “It is completely possible to take small steps every day to create the dream life you’ve always wanted. And then when you’re living in your dream life, dream even more.”
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