Leena Manro  0:00  

Welcome to up to so good, the podcast that unlocks the secrets of creating a purpose driven business so we can all make this world a better place. Come join the conversation. Welcome to up to so good, the podcast that explores the purpose of business. I'm your host. Leena Manro Today, our guest is April Hickey. She's the Chief growth officer at Toast. Toast is an organization that works with companies addressing gender diversity and cultural diversity and diversity of all kinds by helping them with their hiring practices. I just want to let viewers and listeners know that this particular episode was recorded right before the US elections, and you see, DNI was a very hot topic in the States before the elections, and even currently here at all purpose, we very much believe and encourage diversity. That said, I was really impressed by how April broke it down, because it just made sense. April talks about how innovation and diversity they do, they go hand in hand. Why? Because if you have the same people in the room with the same backgrounds, the same experiences, maybe the same schools, they're having the same conversations, but when you have a diverse set of backgrounds and perspectives, that's when innovation flourishes. That's just logical. So I hope that you watch or listen to this episode and you're able to take away some really key insights about diversity and how it matters. It matters to your bottom line. Thanks so much. Enjoy the episode. Hello and welcome to up to so good the podcast that explores the purpose of business. And we're very excited about our guest today, April Hickey, the chief growth officer at toast Yes. Thank you. We're so excited to have you. Yes. So toast is, unlike a lot of entities that we've actually, that we've interviewed people, we've interviewed companies, we've interviewed is I'm so excited about it because it's focus of women and tech and all things that explore sort of gender biases. It's actually such a beautiful and original and incredible concept. Thank you. So I think anybody who is interested in really eliminating biases of all kinds will find this absolutely fascinating. And it's a new organization, just just a couple of years old, two years old. Yeah, incredibly well, you're doing incredible things. Okay, tell me what is toast.

April Hickey  2:17  

I have do my whole elevator pitch. Sure I do everything. So basically, we exist, as you mentioned, to get more women hired in tech. This was really based off the experiences my co founder and I had while we were in tech, where, you know, we had actually met each other when we sought community outside of our workplaces. We both joined a board, ended up meeting other like minded women. Both of us doubled our salary within a year once we started having more conversations with women. But our CEO, my co founder, she was working at a bank at the time and was really struggling to hire on her team and to get gender parity, and the business wasn't really seeing it always as a business problem that there were no women applying for these jobs. And so, you know, we both had experiences where we had gone out into our network and, like, brought in women, and convinced women to come apply for these jobs, which is really interesting, because we do hear that often from our clients, just that women don't apply. So we decided to, you know, see if we could solve for that problem in two ways. One, we wanted to make sure that there was community for women in tech, and so we have a community where women can come in, they have access to an HR lawyer, upskilling, hackathons, all of these really exciting things, career coaches as well. We know there's a lot of financial barriers for women to access career coaches, but on the flip side, we wanted to work with organizations that wanted to increase gender diversity on their tech teams and on their teams in general, and we're really serious about it. And so we launched, yeah, January of 2022, it was, it's been a very wild ride, very crazy. We now have over almost 20,000 women in the candidate pool across the Canada and the US. We have over 125 clients that we work with, so large enterprise down to startups, and it's been really incredible, too. We've had a lot of inbound sales, which has been really great. Just a lot of companies that are trying to figure out, how do we support women. How do we ensure that, you know, women feel that this is a safe place for work, that they can thrive, that they can grow in? Yeah, it's been really

Leena Manro  4:28  

cool, amazing. Yeah. Okay, so, so toast. Then is it as an organization? Then is it a meeting place?

April Hickey  4:35  

We are a social enterprise, a social basically. So it's funny that this is exactly the topic of your podcast. People, I think, sometimes don't know what box to put us in. They're like, Wait, are you a nonprofit? And we're like, No, we're not a nonprofit. We are a profitable business, completely bootstrapped, but we just have purpose behind it. And so having those two aspects, the B to B aspect, where which is primarily our revenue driver. Obviously, is, is our recruitment arm. We have five recruiters that work with us. It's very busy. But just the fact that we try and provide support for women, people push us often to be a nonprofit, because if you have purpose attached, right, there's no way you can have purpose and profit. I agree, people get very confused by the social enterprise

Leena Manro  5:16  

aspect. I think, I think, and for us, our company, where we are B Corp, and we've interviewed, actually, quite a few B Corps. But you know, you don't have to be a B Corp, of course, to be really committed to social impact, environmental impact, but you're absolutely right. The first thought I think a lot of people have is nonprofit, nonprofit right immediately. And I think that's got to change. There's got to be a huge shift in thinking that, yes, you can have and you should have purposeful businesses and make profit, because those profits can go back into that purpose. It doesn't

April Hickey  5:46  

have to be one or the other. I often, and I don't think everything is about gender, but I do often wonder how often men are asked if they should are a nonprofit, right? Typically women who are running these purposefully led businesses, it is typically not always, but it does frustrate me sometimes when, and we've even applied for some grants where we've been turned down, they're like, nope, but you, if you're a nonprofit, we'll give it to you. Oh, my God. So if we offer the same programming, wow. But if we structure because it's so backwards. It's very, very archaic way, I think that

Leena Manro  6:26  

is, that is yesterday's capitalism. Yes, you know, things do have to change. That's part. That's probably why we started this particular process. Yes, because of the same sort of things that we were coming across that, you know, people still have this very limited sort of idea of what profit, a profitable business is, and can be and, and I wonder, I'd like to ask you, do you feel that there's a disproportionate amount of women, though, who are the face of a lot more impact businesses? Um, I would kind of balance. I would say

April Hickey  6:54  

it's quite balanced. I would say there's, yeah, there's quite a few women. It typically, again, I don't think everything is a gender thing,

Leena Manro  7:02  

but a lot is

April Hickey  7:04

a lot is, unfortunately, sometimes the

April Hickey  7:07  

primary pushback that we've even gotten specifically around funding, or someone asking me if we should be a nonprofit, is from men who suggest that to us. Would you like I get very frustrated in one particular call, I was speaking to a funding body in another province from here, and I actually have I went through a graduate program for corporate social innovation, and I challenged him on the call. Have you ever heard of corporate social innovation? Do you know what social innovation is? Give me a definition of a social enterprise. Can you understand? Because he was pushing back and saying, Well, we could give you this money, but we likely would only give it to you if it was a non profit. And I was trying to explain to him the difference, and like getting him to explain to me why, why do I need to be a non profit in order to want to make a difference in the world? And I don't know if you've ever done Brene Brown's values exercise. It's such a great one. I encourage people to do it all the time. You can just go onto our website, print out this piece of paper, and she's got a whole list of all these different values. And I mean, the premise is, if you have more than two priorities, you have no priorities. And so I carried it around for almost four weeks, and I'd pull it out of my pocket and cross something out, like forgiveness, not a value of mine, and then I put it back in and think about a couple others. And it was such a great exercise for me to dig into. Which of my values do I think other people expect me to have, or what values do I like, want to portray to the world, but aren't really truly mine? Anyways, after four weeks of carrying this ratty old piece of paper around, I did find that one of mine is making a difference. And so for me, if I am running a business, and this is something I am dedicating my life to, and this is, you know, time that I'm spending away from my children, then it needs to be doing something that's making a business. And at the same time, I can't feed my kids resumes. So I gotta have profit,

Leena Manro  9:02  

something that's making a difference, yeah? But say that again, it's gonna be something that's making a difference, but you also need to be making a profit. Yeah? And that's beautiful, because you can, you can do yes, we're perfect.

April Hickey  9:15  

We're proving it. We are proving that you can do it. We, again, have never raised, um, we have built a very successful, financially sustainable business by ourselves that is having a huge impact in the world. And on top of, you know, the great conversations that we have with women and our clients too, that we've been able to get, you know, our clients in front of a different candidate pool, I just think of, you know, the exposure that we've had. We've been featured in Forbes magazine, and, you know, I have a little wall of narcissism at home now, for all of the features and all of the times that people wanted to have conversations with us about this, it shows me that it was a good time for change. So

Leena Manro  9:51  

when you say your clients, then I think when I was I was reading up about about toast and the services provided, I think I got a little bit. Confused in the sense of, are your clients then the enterprise businesses, or are they the women? No, it's,

April Hickey  10:07  

I mean, that's a good question. I've never been asked to that before, our clients, I'm typically referring to the companies that hire us to ensure that we have that we place women in in their companies. But

Leena Manro  10:19  

right? Because that's the diverse candidate pool that you're talking about, is the women, yeah, okay, but in a sense they're your clients too. Yeah, right, yeah. In a sense they both are, and it was also unique. And I think it's, is it your business partner who formulated the AI algorithm? Yes, that takes gender bias out of the equation. Yeah, that's pretty profound. Yeah. It's just

April Hickey  10:39  

she's so impressive that she she has a master's in AI, of course, one of the very few women in AI, in any room she's ever been in, for sure, in her career, she also started her career in talent acquisition. So this is toast. Is the perfect marriage. And this was all Marissa idea. Marissa started building and I we were friends before, like running working at toast together, and I was like running beside her, being like, I think you need a co founder. I think you need to bring me in with you, because everything that she was building was sounding so exciting to me. But what she found in her time in talent acquisition, and what we even saw, you know, in being hiring managers ourselves. I carry my own bias. We all do right? If no one here has ever done the unconscious bias quiz on the Harvard website, I encourage everyone here to go look at it. It's very shameful.

Leena Manro  11:32  

We have we've done it. It is

April Hickey  11:33  

very painful. I actually me of all people, I had this bias tying women to work inside the home and men to work outside of the home. My husband typically stays at home, by the way, more than more than I ever do with our children. So it's funny, but those are bias that we carry. And so when we look at hiring, there's so much ingrained bias in that hiring process. So if we look at someone's name, automatic bias. Automatic. If you look at someone's name, if we add so we don't actually add any workplaces for where someone's worked before, I would maybe put Fintech startup, because any candidate that has foreign work experience automatic bias against that for sure, do not put years that they've worked there. I will put they've worked there for three years and nine months. But with years, we introduce ageism. We introduce like gaps for maternity leaves. Same with schools, there's socio economic bias tied yes to the school. So we actually create these profiles that we present to our clients. And some of our clients are great. And before we came they actually had processes where maybe they already blocked out the name because the hiring managers didn't want to know if it was a manner of women. These companies

Leena Manro  12:40  

had processes inside absolutely okay. So some of

April Hickey  12:43  

them, some of them, not all of them, okay, a lot of them come to us and like, we don't know how to do

Leena Manro  12:47  

better, right? Can you help us? The fact that they want to do better is huge, and that's why

April Hickey  12:50  

we've we've done really well with inbound sales. We've been very blessed that way. When I think about that, I would never want to go out to a client and really have to sell to them why they need diversity on their teams, or why there is no innovation without diversity. I would never want to have to push that. So we've been very lucky that the clients that work with us are are just as valuable. Yeah, and there's and it's funny, because we, if we talk about bias, one of our, one of my now favorite clients, and one of my favorite stories to tell is we had a company approach us, and they were a trucking company. Okay? Immediately I was like, F No, absolutely not. I would never, absolutely never, place a woman in a trucking company. But I'll have this call with them, and I'll see how it goes, I guess. And my co founder and I both were like, Absolutely not. We're never working with these people. I hung up the phone. Not only is, do they already have 5050 gender parity on the tech teams, which is incredible. Yeah, they offer a paid mat leave for women. They have L and D bonuses. They came to me like, arms wide open. How do we write our job descriptions better so that women want to work here? How do we create safe spaces? Are there courses that we should be putting our men through to make sure that they are creating safe spaces? I know, and so that was like

Leena Manro  14:13  

trucking company bias that you experienced,

Unknown Speaker  14:17  

carrying this bias around

Leena Manro  14:19  

the moment they use the trucking company right away, am I kicked in if you saw

April Hickey  14:24  

a job posting for trucking company, would you apply for? No,

Leena Manro  14:27  

I know. I know. Oh my gosh, I just admitted that is true. I have trucking company bias, especially if the trucking company I'm gonna say this, if it came from Alberta, I'd be like, Oh, double they are Alberta. Oh, so absolutely

April Hickey  14:40  

no way, I mean, and so I could understand why they struggled to get women in the door, and why they were like, going out and sourcing them themselves. And so, you know, we would have to go up to candidates and be like, hear us out. Let me just, let me talk to you. I want to work for that. That sounds so honestly the. There. I like dinner with them. And these, these two specific gentlemen on their team, they're like our old dads are so great, fantastic. But again, here's my own bias that could have stopped me from creating this impact where we've now placed three women with that company, and it like it has changed these women's lives. They work in these great safe spaces now, and we've been able to help get this client in front of a brand new candidate pool that never would have been. So it's been great helping women, obviously, but also helping these clients has been really, really great in me feeling as though I'm making

Leena Manro  15:38  

a difference. And you know that trucking company also this great example that you brought up for so many reasons, my mind is blown with all the bias, the way bias, you know, rears its ugly head. But that's another example of a company that actually the purpose of it isn't just necessarily trucking, you know, the purpose of it is also it's there's a strong social purpose and equality that they're living by by engaging in these practices. So that's just so when, when we think about toast, can you tell me what is the purpose of your business?

April Hickey  16:13  

I mean, we have so many of them. I think it's to give voice to those that are unheard. And truly, I would say our purpose is to make a difference. I hope that is what we do every day and everything. We have no problem challenging the status quo. And I know before we kicked off this podcast, I was giving you all multiple examples of times that we have called people out on LinkedIn, yeah, and I actually we have had an idea to create, like a bot that would probably just go online and call people

Leena Manro  16:45  

out all day long. Like, yeah, you guys can create that. I mean, 100%

April Hickey  16:48  

but I also think it's important for us as founders to try and set the stage for other women to feel like they have that voice to call out these things as well. Whenever we see a panel of all white men, for example, which is very tough. 90% of tech leadership is white men. However, you're not even trying. It's 2024, right? We don't need that. Do you know what I mean? That is not, we can't do that. And the same thing, I think, goes for women too, though we can't have a panel of all white women either. And I think we often forget that mainstream feminism upholds white supremacy, and so it is all of our jobs to understand our bias, our privilege, the different things that we carry. And I think at toast, we really try and push that and live into those values.

Leena Manro  17:34  

You are amazing. April, not only is toast up to so good, You're up to so good. They're up. Don't you want to sing it? Don't you see, it's fun. Okay, I'll try. Ready? Okay, all right, the beautiful company, toast and April and your co founders, you're all up, just so good.

April Hickey  17:58  

You did say you'd make me sing,

Speaker 1  17:59  

okay? But you kind of want to though, right? Do you

April Hickey  18:05  

want to wrap it? No, I think I'm okay. I'm good. My my boys at home do make fun of me that when I sing that people's ears bleed. No, I will have to show my son. That

Leena Manro  18:17  

is the job of children. Okay?

April Hickey  18:19  

Yeah, they keep me humble. I did. I was recently featured in this magazine, and when it came in print, I showed my son. I was like, look at how exciting this is. And he started to read it, and then he just handed it to me. He's like, sorry, Mom, this is really boring. Okay, keeping me humble. Yes, good, honesty. But I like that we are up to so good, yeah? So, I mean, we're really we are trying to become a movement. And we were referred to as a movement this year, and I took it as just the coolest compliment, yeah, yeah. We are definitely trying, yeah. Okay,

Leena Manro  18:56  

so take me back. Okay, what was it that that sparked? No, this is something that, like we absolutely have to do, and we're going to do it like this.

April Hickey  19:04  

I think some of our biggest successes have been in having conversations with clients or women on the changes and impact that we've had in their lives. But if I think back to those early days, you know, we had imagined a movement. We had imagined challenging the status status quo. We had imagined women getting paid what they deserve and feeling confident to negotiate for higher salaries. Why do people not post salaries anymore? Like, we all need to make money to survive. This is and like, have you seen what it costs for strawberries these days? Like people need to make money now. So we need to have conversations about that I found that myself, you know, after which I alluded to earlier, after meeting Marissa and finding another community of women and having these open conversations about what other people were making, if we're not talking about how much money we're making, yeah, the only people that benefit are the companies and corporations by keeping there are some corporations over telling people not to talk about their self. Which is just sickening and infuriating, because it keeps people in poverty, it keeps people small and so, you know, we really I'm blessed with this like natural defiance, and I've been that way since I was a little girl. But not everyone has that confidence, or even that safety, that psychological safety in their workplaces or in their communities to feel the need like that, they could stand up to things. And so, you know, when we go into the toast community now, and I read some of the slack messages of women being like, Thank you, I came in here, I asked for advice, and I was able to negotiate a higher salary, or I walked away from my toxic job where there was misogyny and racism that was blatant. There things like that. Yeah, so many stories

Leena Manro  20:42  

of misogyny and racism and like, I mean, I think that that's also not necessarily talked about in terms of women and their lived experiences, and people of color and their lived experiences, you know. And you know people, I think they do need to talk about these and just share stories. And from my own experience, I was a lawyer before I became producer, writer, director and, you know, co founder of this enterprise and all that. So I've seen a few different worlds and how misogyny has shown up in different spaces, and it's all in all the spaces. Personally, maybe I'm biased. We are all purpose. It's pretty good company. We're a good company. It's a good company. Hey, ladies like and follow. We're a pretty good company, yes, but it's in my own, you know, seeing the change in the 90s and 2000s and 2010s onward, there has been a change, but it was not even that good 10 years ago. And 10 years is not that long ago, you know, I mean me too. I think was huge. Oh my gosh. I say

April Hickey  21:41  

triggered. I say all the time that there's so much power in simply saying, me too about anything. I'm really glad that movement started for what it did, um, but there's but for everything. Because shame, if we put on that shame suit, shame keeps us quiet, it keeps us smaller, yeah, and we carry the shame with us over things. I personally carried a lot of shame. And I would say, in the past two years becoming an entrepreneur, I've just been able to, like, un arm myself and just really truly be me. And I've never felt more comfortable in my skin, which has been really incredible. It is been, like, so incredible

Leena Manro  22:21  

to really so too. Yeah, like, there's a changing environment, and also with age, as as we get older, and yes, my advice to women in their 20s and their 30s, I'm

April Hickey  22:33  

Yes. Don't know how old are you? You look very young. I feel like my 40s are going to be good years. It's going

Leena Manro  22:42  

to get better and better and better. And I feel

April Hickey  22:45  

like even with my own boundaries and my own like, hear what my priorities are right now, right now, they're my business and my family, and that's it. And if I have other free time, it's going to be for me being alone. Because I'm actually very introverted. I am an extroverted person, but I'm an introvert. I need copious amounts of alone time in order to do my job. Yeah, and be as public facing as I am, protect and I just, I want to be alone. I went on two solo trips this year because I just wanted to be very and my husband's very supportive of it, which is great, because obviously we have two kids. But I was like, I'm, uh, I'm out. And even I was just talking to him, I'm going to try not to get emotional talking about it, but I'm coming up on a up on a huge milestone in my life. I'm going to be 10 years sober on February 1. I quit drinking 10 years ago, but I said to my husband, I want a couple days alone to sit back and reflect on, like, what that looked like for me and what that was. And he's just like, Yeah, let's, like, create that space for you to make sure. Congratulations. Thank you. It's huge. Yeah, yeah, it was pretty cool.

Leena Manro  23:44  

I can't wait to see all the things that you guys are going to be doing. And this is so young and it's already, it's really on fire, not like in a burnt toast kind of way, like a good, like in a good,

April Hickey  23:53  

good French toast. It's like toast your nine to five. Goodbye was a good play on words so that we could get people new jobs, but also get that bread for making money. Oh, got it Yes. Yeah, good. I love your little tagline. Where

Leena Manro  24:10  

do you guys see yourself going? What's your dream again?

April Hickey  24:13  

I think that there's still a lot of work to do, judging by what I see when I open up LinkedIn. Look at our our ecosystem and the and the current state of it. I mean, gosh, we were just talking even politics before this. And you look sometimes at, like the political, yeah, we can talk about

Leena Manro  24:34  

politics. I mean, this is going to air after the election. So, okay, yeah,

April Hickey  24:39  

there's like, some scary shit out there. Sorry for swearing, but there is. There's some really scary people again, if we talk about misogyny and racism, look at the US elections right now. I worry about our ability to continue to expand in the US. If you know Trump has made threats that he wouldn't make any. DNI initiative illegal. Now, let's think about

Leena Manro  25:02  

how how nuts that is. Yeah, DNI,

April Hickey  25:05  

any, any initiative within an organization that is aimed at

Leena Manro  25:11  

fairness, justice, equity, diversity, any sort of motion

April Hickey  25:15  

or like advocacy for like, any sort of diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, any of that, all of that language, would have to be removed, and you wouldn't be able so we wouldn't be able to operate in the US. So again, this just goes to show how much work there still is to do, like people and leaving for him. I

Leena Manro  25:38  

know it's just

Unknown Speaker  25:40  

wow, people and women vote for him. Oh,

Leena Manro  25:42  

I know women. I don't get it. Can

April Hickey  25:44  

we talk about what he said on the bus that day, years ago, before his like, like, come on, and we have women by

Leena Manro  25:51  

them. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, what? What hasn't he said? I mean, it took me a second because he said so much stuff. I feel so much stuff when

April Hickey  25:57  

I listen to this. I wanna I feel honestly when I listen to even the debates that I'm being gaslight through

Leena Manro  26:04  

the 100% Yeah, 100% like, there's, there's, every time he speaks, there's gaslighting. But he doesn't even say anything. When he speaks, he doesn't say anything. No, he doesn't. That's true. That's true. He

April Hickey  26:15  

just, he just, like, says words, but he's not saying.

Leena Manro  26:19  

It's interesting that he has a he has so much support, and it's like, it's so it's so funny, because it's not like he's paired up with some equal. She is outstanding. Kamala is outstanding. Oh, she's so sorry

April Hickey  26:30  

his wife, for her. I feel so sorry for her. I mean, like, a nice, comfy lunch, yeah, people are sneaking

Leena Manro  26:39  

her little like, Do you need help on cards? Do you know she's never even around anymore? She like, does her own Yeah, she just, like, hangs out. No, yeah, I don't. I don't know. I meant in the sense of his opponent. His opponent is not an equal. His opponent is someone who is so much, far greater than him. I mean, like her resume, her spans, all this stuff spans, and it drives me nuts when people say that that's a diversity and equity hire, and it's like she just happens to be a woman and a person of color. Can we just say that? Like, why do we have to go there? It just happens that everyone else has been a white man, everyone else which is so this, this looks a little bit unusual. Now, yes, yes, that's how fairness works. It looks a little

April Hickey  27:21  

fascinating too, because we so even though I talk about candidate pools at toast, I in discussions with my clients often I actually say, and it depends on how chill my client is, um, but I will say, I don't really care if people hire another like mediocre white man for the role, just make sure that you have a candidate pool that's representative of the community that you serve exactly. You cannot do that for a candidate pool

Leena Manro  27:45  

of all white or all any homages, any

April Hickey  27:49  

sort you can't. You need to have reflection of the community

Leena Manro  27:53  

that you're serving. Like, I think that is critical. Having reflection of the community you're serving that that's it.

April Hickey  27:59  

So when, when companies come to me and they're like, Okay, like, I met with a company on Monday, today's Tuesday. So yesterday I met with them, and they were like, Yeah, we put up for these engineering roles, and we get 300 applicants, and only two of them are women. Okay? So then you cannot actually proceed. Then you need to go out and source or hire a company, right, yes, or someone to make sure that even if you're interviewing and you're going to shortlist to 10 again, what is the community that you operate in? Look like this company is in Calgary. Cool. One in four people in Calgary identify as a person of color. So you need to ensure you have at least 20% of the population is women. So let's have that like, at least set these metrics for yourself that if you're hiring someone, yes, you go find those people to make sure, because you cannot have at the end of the day, when we think about diversity, obviously, the first things that come to mind are like sexual orientation and race and and and all like gender, all of these things. But at the end of the day, what you're looking for is a diversity of background, which brings a diversity of thought and experience and all of these things, so that if you're going to innovate, if you keep hiring the same guy from University of Waterloo, parents put them that you're not

Leena Manro  29:09  

going to get a different not innovation. Yeah, makes you're not going to

April Hickey  29:13  

innovate. You are never going to come up with the different ideas, and you're never going to and this is, again, the conversations I have with my clients. When I have clients who come to me, we can have a great conversation like this. I'm like, perfect. You are someone that we will work with and then. But if I have to really understand, like, make people understand that, yeah, you should have

Leena Manro  29:30  

to sell it. It should just be self evident. It should be, you know, like, like, just in general, like, human rights, yes, self evident terms, yes, you know, fairness, yeah, kindness. In my opinion, I was also pretty self Yeah, like, I don't know, equity, equity. These are self equity. It's an easy thing there. Yeah. So what kind of challenges do you experience? So has it been resistance? And if so, what does it look like?

April Hickey  29:50  

Yeah, it's really interesting, because before we launched, we had these personas of, you know, the clients that we thought we would attract and and people that would support us, and we actually. Have this entire persona of like tech bros, being like, we support women, and being happy to kind of partner with us. However, we I have actually found the greatest resistance have been from men. And that being said, I have a really close girlfriend. She's going to roll her eyes, because I quote her all the time, but her name is Roselle Gonzalez. She is the head of DNI at a large financial institution. And she reminds me when I went to her once, and I was like, I just don't understand why all these men are so angry with us. And she reminded me that if we are pushing back against the system, anyone who benefits from that system is automatically going to be threatened. Oh, it makes sense. And so of course, we are threatening the system in which they benefit from they already get they, you know, they, of course, there's 300 of them applying for a job. Chances are they're probably gonna, one of them is gonna get the job over the two other people that are in a different represented group, right? And so that is, for sure, been a challenge. I also think, as an entrepreneur myself, it has been challenging again, just so we're our first time doing this. We don't always know what we're doing, and we're trying to balance this profit and purpose. And a really good example of that, you know, we were early on we I think we only had two clients at this time. I didn't think we had any revenue, and we had a client come to us who had expressed that they wanted us to help with the search, and they were like they were blatantly racist. They had expressed in their search that they would rather hire someone who had Shopify experience over someone who had experience from Nigeria

Leena Manro  31:41  

Wow, I'm gonna highlight

April Hickey  31:42  

this because specifically, this was like a FinTech and I don't know if you know any Nigerians, but there's a large community in Calgary, and a lot of them had already worked in FinTech. And the funny thing is, they have a far more developed banking system than we do, so if you actually hired someone who had that banking experience, you would be hiring someone with way more experience than someone who worked in Canada. So we had a lot of conversations around this specific client before deciding that we actually had to sever ties with them. And so

Leena Manro  32:16  

what was this racism stemming from? It's very

April Hickey  32:18  

specific. It actually happens all the time. This woman was an old school oil and gas recruiter in Calgary. It's just it is what it is. Sometimes that is not value aligned to us. And so, you know, finding that, and that was very early on. Again, we were only a couple months old then, and we had decided in that moment, you know what we're actually going to pass on this client. This is, we cannot say that we're looking for safe spaces for women, and that we're like, pushing and you know this, this specific recruiter is asking us to change everything that we stand for. So I would say that was, and continues to be a challenge, is to make sure that companies that we're working with are aligned to

Leena Manro  32:55  

us and what we want. It is a challenge. We've done it too. It is because,

April Hickey  32:59  

like, turning down work. Could have used the money, agreed, definitely could have used the money, especially at that time. But you know, in hindsight, I think that those moments really helped define to us what our purpose was and what we were going to stand for. We also let go of a client last year who had let go of all the women on their board, and I sent a very strongly worded email to him, to the chair, the CEO at the time, and just let him know why we were no longer aligned to him. So I think those have been some challenges. And then yeah, again, on the personal front, I would say, trying to find that quite introvert time that I need when you know, like, my children need me, and the business needs me, and all of that, I would say, has been like a big challenge as well. It's good that you're

Leena Manro  33:47  

clear about about what it is you need to refill. So

Speaker 1  33:50  

now, yeah, year one,

April Hickey  33:55  

yeah, year one was like, not quite as good. I burnt out in the fall last year a little bit. And I have a really great mentor who, you know, she just kept encouraging me. She's like, go to the forest. Take your shoes off, put your feet on the earth. Like, yes, go breathe in the forest. Like, it works. It is legitimately anything that works. And now I'm much more intentional in looking at my calendar for in advance again, talking with my husband about February, like, hey, so I know I want a couple days like by myself to do these things. I also know March is going to be busy, so I'm going to carve out these times. And I think that that has been a good practice for me. Yeah. So

Leena Manro  34:30  

where do you find the the clients who are values aligned? How do you how do you attract this again? We've

April Hickey  34:37  

been really lucky that we've had a lot of inbound. I think our brand now is large enough that people are talking people are hearing about us. We do have events, yeah, and part of you know the membership helps, helps build up that candidate pipeline as well. We just hosted a summit where we had a Women in Tech Summit in Calgary. We had 500 women come. Would have gone. It was so great. You have to come next year to come next year. We're also doing one in Toronto next year, in June, and we had, like, really big names sponsor it. So I think our brand is out there. People know what we stand here

Leena Manro  35:14  

in Vancouver too, I don't know. Oh, maybe we have a space,

April Hickey  35:19  

okay? Maybe we should talk after Yeah, I mean, we did have someone offer to sponsor it already, one in Vanco specifically, which is funny. Yes, I It's hard because, like, the first two years, we really wanted to build up brand awareness, but I didn't want to be known as an events company, but events worked for us. It really did, especially in sharing our purpose, which is such a big piece of how we attract the right clients. I found that if I'm speaking on a stage which I get lots of opportunities to do now, and I'm very grateful for them, but if I can explain to people why we do what we do, and why it's so important, and why we should support women, people get immediately can resonate with our story and why it's important, and then clients just kind of come that way, but at the same time, I don't want to spend all day planning events. Yeah, it's

Leena Manro  36:07  

a tough one. That's true. Yeah, it's a balance, for sure. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, we're in the all purpose, sort of the safe the vault at our company, because so cool. You know, we're trying to unleash the secrets of good business and impactful business. And the acoustics are really good in here. What was this fault before? This was an actual bank vault. This designated is over 100 years old, and we have the first two floors, as you can see outside the vault. And anybody who's listening will not actually get a sense of, I think, this space. So, you know, it's, this might be, this might be a good episode to look on YouTube. But the entire office here at one time was a bank, and the building is a heritage building, and so for us it was, it's a beautiful space, you know, for any, anything and all things creative.

April Hickey  36:56  

I was gonna say, I feel very creative in here. That's fascinating. Okay, let's talk a little

Leena Manro  37:01  

bit about the kind of stories of misogyny. And I want to, I want to bring this up because I think that this doesn't really get talked about enough amongst both women and men, and many times, people in these industries, in tech or, you know, our background, we have a lot of our team from film and TV. As I said before this, I was in law. I don't think people really realize how much misogyny is out there, and they're not aware, men or women even do you want to share some stories

April Hickey  37:33  

you've heard? You don't have to name I swear I'm making a coffee table book with all these stories one day. Mark my words. Yeah, happen. I

Leena Manro  37:40  

feel like it's always a system. It feels like it's, it is a systemic

April Hickey  37:43  

issue, of course, the patriarchy, right? Like we operate in this, like white supremacist patriarchal society, where we, like, you know, promote people or encourage people to act masculine. And I'm acutely aware that I'm raising two boys too, which is something that's like, very close to my heart, and so I do have to watch what I say. Honestly, I do. So you're

Leena Manro  38:07  

very passionate about this. Yeah. Do you know toast is making a difference. You are making a difference. Thank you. What was it? What started all this for you? Why are you here? Well, yeah. Well, like I

April Hickey  38:18  

said, I like giving voice to the voiceless. Sometimes I personally so yes, I am where I am now. However. You know, my life looked much different when I was young. I was raised into a family of parents who weren't quite ready to be parents, and so I had addiction in my home at a very young age, which, you know, gave me some different skill sets, trying to navigate a parent who is very unpredictable, definitely. You know, it raises anxious human beings, but it also helped me navigate really difficult situations as I turned into a teenager and found myself out of the home. I lived in homeless shelters when I was younger, yeah, and in group homes and foster care. And it was, you know, a really sad experience. It was really hard when I look back on what that kind of gave me. I really wanted to be seen. But more than that, I really wanted to be able to make a difference and make sure that, you know, other people felt that they had a voice and that they can pull themselves out of hard situations, because we've all experienced it, and so, you know, now, when I look back on how far I've come, I think that we I like this quote, that we are given this baggage to show other people how it can be unpacked. And so I that's, I like, it is really fantastic. I heard that once, and I was like, Oh, that's so it is what it is. And so I feel so grateful that I have this opportunity, this opportunity now, to tell these stories and share these stories. And I'm still, you know, trying to. Navigate that I have a parent right now who I was mentioning before the podcast, is very ill, and I'm, you know, still trying to balance being a good person and being a good human, even if that person wasn't a great human. To me my whole life growing up, because I think that we have this opportunity as human beings to show up for others, and I think that that's part of human connection and why we're here. So how, you know, how can we be of service to other people, and how can we lift other people up? And I think corporations specifically, have this really unique and huge opportunity. We live in this capitalist society. It is what it is. But when I was looking at a graduate program and what I wanted to do for my master's Royal Roads University was just launching this corporate social innovation program, and so I enrolled myself, keeping in mind I never finished high school, like I dropped out of school because I was in foster care, and I was like, often running away because I felt unsafe. And so I never finished high school going back to get a degree, or, you know, to go to university and then go to graduate school was not something I ever thought that I would do. And so I wrote a very compelling entrance letter, letter. It was admitted. I actually graduated with an A average as well, which I'm totally gonna flex on. Yes, I did not even finish high school and doing that, which was super cool. And then they had me come back this year, and I was the orator. I did the convocation speech for the MBA grads this year, and I sat up there and I told this story. I talked about, you know, that our beginnings do not have to define our ends, and how much I reflect on that. And after I got off stage, the Dean came up to me, and he shared with me that he used to be the minister, the Deputy Minister of Children's Services here in BC, before getting the job at the university. And he told me that less than 3% of children who are ever in the system ever go on to get degrees, let alone go on to get a master's level education. And he told me that all that I've done with toast is everything he had ever imagined when he was building that social innovation program. I know, I know I cried a lot, and my husband was like, I knew you were one in a million, but it was like, really incredible to get that validation to to see and I did get a lot of feedback, obviously, after that, and I'm actually doing a TED talk this year on that exact kind of topic, which I'm very excited about. Yeah, I'm very excited. But I think that's why, you know, I want to, can you continue to use my voice to show people that we can use our experiences and, like, take those experiences and use them for good. And I think everyone has those, yeah, and it's just trying to engage everyone, to do that

Leena Manro  42:47  

earlier, just as a joke. We were talking about, you know, some of the values, I think you said jokingly, oh, you know, the different priorities, I can focus on these two. Maybe forgiveness isn't one, yeah. Can we go back to that? Yeah? I mean, there's been, you've experienced a lot, a lot more than an average person would experience, and you touched on forgiveness. How have you been able to forgive?

April Hickey  43:12  

It's funny that we're talking about this right now, because I talked about this at lunch today. I have a really nice lunch with someone just up the road, and she had kind of alluded to having a similar upbringing, and this was like a business lunch, and I never met this woman before my entire life. And then I, like, prodded her, and she said at lunch, she was like, I'm never gonna forgive my mom, and that's okay for me. And I was like, Hey, I knew we don't know each other, but can we back up and talk about that? Because I spent a lot of time with my psychologist. We've been together for eight years, by the way, I have the world's greatest psychologist, and she has really helped me process my childhood and all that have happened, that has happened to me in a really positive way, and helped me understand my brain, why I am the way I am, and what drives me. And I put on a huge focus last year, on really trying to find forgiveness for specifically one of my parents. I think I have resentment because I was able to, like, pull myself in a really hard place and change my life, specifically for my kids too. I do it for me, but my kids were a big driver, and so I have resentment that my parents were not able to do that for me. And so I had set out with my psychologist, you know, can I? Can you help me find this forgiveness? And every time I thought that I was making progress, I would see that parent and get triggered all over again, and everything would come up for me. And, you know, I remember that parent saying to me once, Wow, it's so cool that you've been able to do so much, even though you went through all these things. And I thought I was gonna lunge across the living room that day. I was like, well, but I went through all these things because you placed these roadblocks in front of me. And I actually think, and I was really worried that I would come to a period where I was going to be losing one of my parents. Said I had, still had not found forgiveness, and I've actually come to a point now where I actually, I think that's okay. I don't think we have to forgive everyone all the time. Yeah, I do think it's important to let it go, yeah? And, like, stand in your boundaries and, like, find a way that

Leena Manro  45:16  

is what forgiveness is. Yeah, forgiveness is really more about, about and I say this because I too, have had to find places of forgiveness for for a few people as well as, you know, you know, one parent in particular, particularly, was quite volatile. And a culture of my own, my own culture that's very kind to women, not very forgiving, yeah, and just experiences, and a lot of it is wrapped up in misogyny. A lot of it, all the any, anything that I can put in a category of violence has always been, you know, violent towards women. Category in my life, volatile is

April Hickey  45:50  

such a good word, right? It really just, yeah, it paints such a picture of what you're trying Oh, yeah,

Leena Manro  45:56  

yeah. And it's something that you also said was, was, you know, when you are dealing with, say, like a volatile parent, there are certain gift gifts you get. Unfortunately, there is something wrapped up in the anxiety, yes, yeah. And then there's something about being able to, I had to learn how to read people really Yes. And, you know, absolutely a beautiful gift. It really is. You never know when volatility will erupt, yeah. And, and also

April Hickey  46:20  

I think, you know, pivot to different circumstances. Like, Oh, I thought this was how today was gonna go, but it's not. So let's just like, yeah, roll with how it is. But I do love how you just explained that was really beautiful. Because I just, yeah, I'm not quite at a place of I probably never will be at a place, especially as a mother. Now, there's times where I look back and I just think that there's things that kids should never have to experience or go through. But in that same vein, I think it's given me more love for just, you know, humanity as a whole, a reminder that I'm not unique. These things happen every day to like kids and adults. And, you know, addiction specifically, yes, it destroys families, but we see it outside every single day, and it and it's it's really sad, it's really sad. And so I think if we're talking about even me too, whenever I talk about addiction or a parent who has suffered from addiction issues, everyone I talk to is like, Oh yeah, I have a brother, sister, mother, aunt, whoever, right, who I've like, helped. It touches everyone's lives. It really does. And so finding that space for empathy for those people, I think, is probably a big piece of like, finding your way to forgiveness. Yeah,

Leena Manro  47:34  

do you feel with the work you're doing, where you are at your life now? You are living your purpose? Yeah?

April Hickey  47:39  

I'm like, living my dream? Yeah, I could tell even saying I really I have everything and more than I've ever dreamed of. Yeah?

Leena Manro  47:49  

Well, there are many who will be listening or who will be watching this podcast, looking, ultimately, for that. You know, there'll be people who will be wanting to create a purposeful company, but really, at the end of the day. I think everyone's looking for purpose, yeah, and so what advice do you have for for someone who's still looking for purpose? I think

April Hickey  48:05  

you just have to take that step. I think a lot of us are risk givers, especially as women. You know, we want to be cautious. Women are just typically more cautious. And I think we just have to be bullish, especially if it's what you think your purpose is. You just have to be bullish and go after it. That's

Leena Manro  48:21  

a beautiful piece of advice. Thank you for that. Yeah, so your website is try toast.ca. And can you tell me more about you know, how people can engage? Yeah,

April Hickey  48:33  

for sure. I mean, like any small business, every like or share or follow helps, for sure. So I find us to be very cheeky on LinkedIn and Instagram, but also, if you come to our website, you're interested in hiring women in tech, you are interested in becoming a part of toast. Any of that you can book a call with us directly on the website as well. So definitely direct people there. Amazing. Yeah. Okay.

Leena Manro  48:55  

Well, thank you so much for being on our show, and that's all the time we have for today's episode of up to so good, because that's what toast is. You wanna do it there. You could wrap it. Don't wrap it. That's okay. Up to so good. I'm your host, Leena Manro, produced by all purpose as well as geopod creations. And yeah, check out our website for more information on this podcast and many more. Well, that's all the time we have for today's show. Thank you so much for joining us. And if you've enjoyed the show, please subscribe, hit the like button or share an episode. And if you have any feedback, questions or comments or show ideas, you can email us directly at Hello at all purpose.io, thank you once again for joining us. We'll see you next time you

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