Toast CEO launches institute to study, boost and train women in tech

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April Hicke says women-dominated occupations are almost twice as likely to be exposed to generative AI as male-dominated ones. She's CEO of Toast, a membership-based women's collective supporting women in the technology industry and holds a Royal Roads University Graduate Certificate in Corporate Social Innovation

A membership-based women's collective and recruitment company, Toast is working to address that gap by providing a platform for women in tech to discuss workplace challenges, while offering access to career coaching and job opportunities. The organization also partners with companies looking to increase gender diversity on their technical teams.

And while her company is doing what it can on those fronts, Hicke wants to do more, which is why they started the Toast Institute, a not-for-profit arm aimed at advancing women's participation and leadership in the technology economy "through research, workforce development and systems-level collaboration."

A think tank for women in tech

"We've always operated at the intersection of purpose and profit," she says, noting, "I kept thinking about what a unique position we are in, that we have data from our clients, that we have data from industry, that we have access to all of this information - how can we use it for good?"

In a LinkedIn post, she described the institute as "a think tank built for action, a place where we leverage data to drive and influence real, systems-level change for women in tech."

More and more, we're talking about not specifically just gender equity, but talent strategy."

To effect such fundamental change, the Toast Institute is partnering with researcher Siri Chilazi of the Harvard Kennedy School Executive Education to dig deep into the data around sponsorship and mentorship. It's also teaming up with the AI platform Lovable "to get more women building and competing through coding access and hackathons and is providing women with scholarships to Google Digital Academy to develop AI skills.

Data can drive work on diversity, improve talent

"When we have hard, solid data and reports coming out of something like the institute, this is what we can use to lobby, to change policy," says Hicke, recipient of RRU's 2025 Community Changemaker award, which recognizes an alum who is leading systemic community change.

This work is needed, she says, because the gender pay gap continues to grow while companies, universities and governments in the U.S. and Canada have faced pushback against initiatives promoting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

Still, Toast has clients throughout North America, including some National Hockey League teams, and they see the value in diversifying the workforce that builds tech tools for a diverse audience.

"More and more, we're talking about not specifically just gender equity, but talent strategy," she explains. "I am seeing more and more organizations that really understand the gap and the problem that arises if you build products with homogeneous teams. If you're building something for the general population, the team that's building it needs to reflect that population… What we want is a diversity of thought, background and life experience, and those are the things that bring us different opinions that let us solve problems in different ways."

In her own words: AI and gender equity in the workplace

One problem Hicke and others have identified in the workforce is the rapid expansion of the use of artificial intelligence, and she has strong opinions on its unequal effects, as expressed in an article on BetaKit that started with this:

"Here's the gap that our national AI conversation isn't talking about enough: The workers most exposed to AI-driven disruption are overwhelmingly women. The people designing those AI systems are overwhelmingly not. That asymmetry is a structural failure…

"The numbers are striking. According to the International Labour Organization's most recent research brief, women-dominated occupations are almost twice as likely to be exposed to generative AI as male-dominated ones. Twenty-nine per cent of women's jobs are at risk, compared to 16 per cent of men's."

She also wrote: "Canada is simultaneously one of the top AI research and development ecosystems in the world and a country where fewer than four per cent of firms have adopted AI in their operations. We are funding acceleration without equity... Canada cannot build a competitive AI economy on half its talent."