Jessica Lortie - Live from SocialWest 2026

Recorded live at SocialWest 2026 in Calgary, Jessica Lortie, Head of Marketing at Toast, joins host Lindsay Smith to dig into one of the most persistent and underreported gaps in the Canadian tech and marketing industries.

Toast is a tech HR firm dedicated to closing gender gaps in the sector, working with organizations to diversify their hiring pipelines and running a community platform that gives women in tech the belonging, sponsorship, and psychological safety that workplaces often fail to provide.

Jessica shares the data behind a pay gap that tripled between 2016 and 2024, why masculine-coded job titles are quietly filtering women out before they even apply, how Toast's Champions Program is training men to advocate for women in the workplace, and why community might be the most underrated career acceleration tool available to women in tech right now.

The gap is real. The data is clear. And the playbook for closing it is already being written.

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Follow Jessica on LinkedIn and learn more about TOAST.

Follow guest host and Takt CEO, Lindsay Smith on LinkedIn.

Thanks to our Editors and Producers at TAKT.

This episode was recorded live in Calgary during SocialWest 2026, Western Canada's largest marketing conference, bringing together over 600 professionals for two days of actionable insights, expert speakers, and high-value networking.

SocialWest is part of the SocialNext series, Canada's leading platform for marketing conferences, media, and community.