Meet our Founder

Catherine Diyakonov, the Founder & CEO of Girls Who Lead, is an undergraduate student at the University of Toronto who is passionate about harnessing the intersection of science, law, technology, finance, and politics to fuel innovative solutions to our world’s most pressing problems.

From a young age, Catherine has been passionate about breaking gender stereotypes and gender barriers, encouraging young women to pursue traditionally male-dominated careers. When she was 15 years old, she presented a TEDx Talk entitled “Girls Will Stay: Overcoming Gender Stereotypes”.

In high school, Catherine was an avid science fair competitor, competing on national and international levels. She is a 3-time Canada-Wide Science Fair medalist and was selected to represent Team Canada on numerous occasions, including the 2022 Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF).

When Catherine is not focussing academic pursuits, she is diving into various extracurricular activities, including her interest in fashion. By age 17, she had appeared in Vogue twice, showing young women that their passion for leadership and academics should not discourage them from pursuing stereotypically female-oriented interests. Her multidisciplinary interests led her to be listed as an Entrepreneur Under 30 in the Industry Leaders Magazine for breaking barriers to innovation.

Catherine is committed to fostering a supportive environment for young women who are self-starters and have demonstrated a passion for leadership. She hopes Girls Who Lead will become a hub where young women can come together from a diversity of fields to build their careers in position of leadership, as well as provide companies with a tangible mechanism for strengthening gender diversity on their teams.