Shani Toledano is the CEO and co-founder of HTVet and HTBioImaging, revolutionary companies on a mission to screen and detect early-stage cancer in both humans and animals. Shani’s inspiration for founding the company comes from her late father’s late-stage cancer diagnosis. Prior to co-founding HTVet and HTBioImaging, Shani served in the Israeli Air Force as an unmanned air vehicle (UAV) instructor and a commander of a flight training centre. Following her service, Shani worked for the Israeli Aerospace Industries as a developer of simulators for the aerospace Industry. Shani holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering focusing on Heat Transfer, Thermodynamics, and Energy as well as a Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence with a focus on Medical Imaging from Afeka Tel Aviv Academic College of Engineering.
“This is not a business discussion so it’s sometimes hard for me to find the right words in English to describe it. If you want to change it to the right words you can.”
There is no need for any changing. The words that Shani Toledano spoke to me were inspiring, endearing and empowering. Read them in this interview as we delved into how being a woman in a man’s world has shaped an incredible career.
You have a very interesting career history. You qualified with an engineering degree and have a background in aviation before moving into the medical field. How was it transferring from one industry into a completely different field, and what challenges did you face?
I worked in the aviation industry for almost ten years, initially as a leader in the Israeli Air Force and then I moved to the Israeli air space industry. I actually started out within a very woman dominated department, as in the Israeli Air Force all the pilot instructors are women. I was a simulator instructor and then I was leading a woman-only group in the Israeli Air Force. I was 18 when I started, highly motivated and with a strong personality which led me to become an instructor. So yeah, I started in a very ‘woman occupied’ space.
Then, I moved to Israeli airspace industry where I worked as a system engineer and although I was not the only woman there, there were only ever a couple of us. It was a very male dominated environment and I was very young, which had its complexities. I can see now that it’s different to be a 30 or 40 year old woman in a man’s environment compared to being 22 years old!
It was challenging and I felt I was working hard to find my own qualities and to be as good as everyone else. As a young woman, I felt I had a lot to prove. Then I started to work in mechanical engineering, which was an extremely male dominated course. In fact I was the only female student in my class. There were 45 or 50 men in my class and just me! This is when I began my journey of being the only woman in the room.
How did being the ‘only woman in the room’ feel and did you work differently to your male counterparts?
It’s helped me become the strong person I am today without a doubt. Today in the vet and medical space, we see a lot of women which is brilliant. It wasn’t like that during my studies, but that experience really helped to shape me.
I enjoy being a woman in this field. We have something about us that helps us make good decisions. Even though we often have to fight for our spot we don’t have to fight each other. I think about how I behave in business – I listen, and I take everything into consideration. I look at the background, the facts, I’m not swayed by other people’s opinions and I try not to let my emotions cloud my decisions and I feel this helps me.
I don’t know how it is to be a male entrepreneur, but being a woman entrepreneur was very challenging. Especially at the beginning when I first started to talk about the company. I was 27 years old with an aviation background and I was starting to talk to doctors and investors about the venture. It was extremely hard getting them to take me seriously. They were nice but they were treating me like their young daughter. At least, that’s what I felt.
How did you navigate and overcome that?
It was a really hard time. I couldn’t get any investments. I remember applying for one of the government grants, but it was rejected on the grounds that they didn’t feel like there was good enough leadership in the company. But then I looked around me and saw young men the same age as me in a similar situation who could easily secure grants and investment. There was a point that I realised that I needed some more proficiency around me, as my background, at the time, was not enough to raise funds or talk business.
Yes, it was hard to be a woman entrepreneur, and again I don’t know it’s like to be a male entrepreneur, but I know it was hard to be one in my position.
Today we have our product out there, we have customers and traction and it’s much easier to reach out to everyone, but in the beginning I got a lot of “it’s a nice idea, we’re sorry about your father, you’re a nice girl but we don’t feel like you can build a business around that.”
“What helped me a lot was to know my goals, to know what I want and to believe in my idea. I mean, I always knew that at some point the world would understand what we have.”
I understand the too-soon passing of your father is a strong emotive reason for this journey, but when many others may have thrown in the towel, what kept you going?
I never took their opinions too deeply. I didn’t believe what they were saying, the implications that I’m not mature enough or maybe not good enough. I listened and just moved on to the next person. I tried not to take it too seriously as I knew what I had. It has been seven years since I founded the company and we are only now starting to sell the device, turnover profit and make an impact. If we were talking two years ago, I would say we were still trying, yet today I feel like we have it and we know how to make an impact, but it has been a challenging journey.
What helped me a lot was to know my goals, to know what I want and to believe in my idea. I mean, I always knew that at some point the world would understand what we have.
Now the device is out there, and vets are using it. How does it make you feel, knowing something you have done is creating good in the world?
I feel like I am living my dream. This is how I imagined it would feel, and it’s really amazing. I do however still find myself feeling afraid that vets won’t like the device. We’re a very young company, with about 150 customers worldwide, so we have just started working with early adopters. I still find myself worrying about failure, but it feels so good to hear amazing feedback and know that it really helps. To see these testimonials and hear that we have saved someone’s dog through early detection of cancer is really quite amazing, it’s a dream come true.
What would you say are your three biggest successes?
Inventing the Heat Diffusion Imaging technology is definitely the first!
Second, that I could do that and still maintain my personal life. I’m 36 and I have a 1-year-old child. If I was still working in aviation and wasn’t the CEO of HTVet I would probably have three kids by now, but I wanted to put the company in a safe zone first, and I’m really proud of that.
Third, the people here – the company’s DNA. We are a team of 35 and everyone here has passion for changing the world and making an impact. You can feel it in the office, everyone truly cares about the work we are doing. Oh, and about 70% of my team are women!
Has your background of ‘being the only woman in the room’ made you want to give more women opportunities?
Sure, definitely! Obviously, I always want the best person for the job, regardless of their gender. But I enjoy working with women. I really like the way women think and I personally feel it’s helpful to have women in leadership and as employees.
You have a one-year-old baby; motherhood is unique journey in itself. How do you think your experience through business has shaped motherhood and how has being a mother shaped the way you have led in the past year?
I think my business experiences make me a better mother just because I have the ability to prioritise things. I don’t panic over every small behaviour and I feel confident trusting myself to make the right decisions.
Being a working mother makes me make the most of everything. When I spend the afternoon with my son, I don’t watch the clock waiting for bath and bedtime, I am fully present with him. I’m focused when at work and I am focussed when at home. When you have less time in both places, you need to prioritise the important parts and make the most of it all.
I don’t waste time and when I’m at work I can make the right decisions in where to place our energies. And I am a strong believer that it is not the quantity of time with my son, but the quality that counts, and I have amazing quality time with him.
“To know that you can do what you want to do in business, to be making decisions, to be the one people are looking up to and setting your own goals – it feels amazing to be in this position.”
As an entrepreneur what would you say are biggest sacrifices you have made?
I’ve sacrificed parts of my personal life. As I said earlier, I would probably have had three kids by now had I still been in the aviation industry. Being pregnant into your late 30s and 40s is not that easy. I took that risk. I’m not sure if at some point in the future I would say maybe it’s not worth it. I guess not, but I wouldn’t know.
But I’ve got myself. I feel like before founding HTBioImaging and HTVet I was a successful person. I was young, I had two degrees in engineering, I was an officer in the Air Force – I did everything I should do in order to be ‘excellent’. But reflecting on that time I think I was working at maybe 40% of my potential. Today I feel like I am at 100% and that feels good. To know that you can do what you want to do in business, to be making decisions, to be the one people are looking up to and setting your own goals. It feels amazing to be in this position.
How would you describe yourself in one sentence?
A few years ago, I still felt like I was just surviving. I was an inventor who was surviving so I would have called myself a survival innovator. Today, I think I would call it a warrior.
What advice would you give to your younger self, or any budding young female entrepreneurs?
I’d tell them that you probably have some voices in your head that don’t help you to get your goals. Such as “What they will think?” “What will they say?” “What will happen if I fail?” “What do they expect of me?” and so on. And for me, the point when the walls fell down and these voices disappeared was when my father passed away. He was 56 years old, and I just decided I didn’t care about those voices anymore. I let go of what I thought the world expected from me. I decided that I could do whatever I wanted to do, without being afraid and trying to make “them” or a version of myself happy. My advice would be to try to ignore the background noise and the negative voices in your head, set your goals, believe in yourself and you can do anything.
I’m sure your father would be proud to know he has had such a lasting impact on you, even though he is not here today.
Definitely. And looking at the logo here at the company, it’s worth mentioning that HT – it’s my father’s initials. It’s here every day, when I get into the office, I see the logo and yeah, he’s here.
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