Former Alberta Innovates exec joins Toast as COO

Nicole Shokoples is toasting a new position—at Toast.

The former Alberta Innovates executive announced today that she is taking on the role of COO at the Calgary-based recruitment platform.

Founded in 2022, Toast is a woman-focused talent and recruitment platform aimed at helping women find roles in STEM fields, closing the gender pay gap, and diversifying the tech and innovation space.

Beyond recruitment, Toast provides mentorship support and growth opportunities for women in tech, and implements a “blind hiring” process to eliminate bias from recruiting processes.

“I believe more than ever that this work matters. If we want to build in Canada, we need the talent to do it, and that talent pool and what it builds needs to be inclusive.”

Nicole Shokoples, Toast

Earlier this month, the company launched the Toast Institute, a not-for-profit division. It will focus on advancing women’s participation and leadership in the tech sector through “research, workforce development, and systems-level collaboration.”

“I believe more than ever that this work matters,” Shokoples told BetaKit. “If we want to build in Canada, we need the talent to do it, and that talent pool and what it builds needs to be inclusive. Given what’s happening in the world, this is the moment to lean in, not step back.”

April Hicke, the founder and CEO of Toast, has known Shokoples for years; both women previously worked as managing directors with ATB Financial. So when it came time for Toast to expand its C-suite, that longstanding relationship—and Shokoples’ professional bona fides—made her an obvious choice to fill the role of COO.

“I don’t think you always get the opportunity to bring someone in who already gets it,” Hicke said. “Our mission, our values, understanding all of it at that level, the market, the moment we’re in: all of it together.”

Hicke said Shokoples’ tenure at Alberta Innovates, which included stints as chief of staff as well as vice-president of stakeholder relations and planning, was a big selling point for Toast and what they envision Shokoples bringing to the table.

“[At Alberta Innovates] she was operationalizing really complex programs across multiple stakeholders,” Hicke said. “I think her skill set is unique and uncommon, and for her to bring that into the private sector—into a company that is scaling and growing—obviously, we’re very ready to receive it.”

Looking forward, Hicke intends for Toast’s new COO to do more than just manage the platform as it currently exists, instead saying that Shokoples will help lead the company as it steps toward bigger aspirations.

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“We’ve been heads down building for a few years now. We’ve proven our model, crossed meaningful revenue milestones, and built a network of over 35,000 women… We’re not just operating as a recruitment company and community, we’re moving into a workforce intelligence company,” Hicke said. “This hire is part of how we make that transition.”

That transition looks like a Toast that steps beyond just recruitment into human resources management more broadly. Hicke said Toast is in the midst of building a “workforce health dashboard for HR leaders.”

“You connect your data, it would plug into your systems and provide a score across five key areas,” she said. “Engagement, retention, hiring funnel, pay equity, and internal mobility. Think of it like a credit score for your talent health.”

All of that is good news, according to Shokoples.

“The company has the vision, momentum, and positioning to scale,” she said. “What excites me most is what’s directly ahead: leveraging our insights and technology to help organizations make data-driven talent decisions, while building our own organization to scale sustainably.”

BetaKit’s Prairies reporting is funded in part by YEGAF, a not-for-profit dedicated to amplifying business stories in Alberta.

Photo courtesy of Toast.