The Newcomers Podcast

In this episode, I'm speaking with Baisakhi Roy, editor of Canadian Immigrant, in the first episode of the collaboration between The Newcomers and Canadian Immigrant, where we look to go beyond the policies and headlines to ask the questions most newco...

In this episode, I'm speaking with Daniella Jasper-Okumagba, Founder and CEO of The BRDGE, a Canadian food platform that connects ethnic chefs with people craving their food. Daniella walked away from a cushy oil and gas job in her early twenties to bu...

In this episode, I'm speaking with Jonah Chininga, Co-Founder and CEO of Woveo, a Calgary-based fintech startup that operates on the basis that reputation can work as collateral for Canadian small businesses. Jonah is an example of the well-used cliché...

In this episode, I'm speaking with Wunmi Adekanmbi, the visionary behind Trade Without Borders, a platform that aims to advance Canada's global trade diversification through diaspora networks, international partnerships, and engagement with emerging ma...

In this episode, I am speaking with David Bradshaw, Co-Founder of BradshawBolton and President of Calgary Black Chambers, about what it's like walking into rooms where nobody looks like you. Once you're in there, do you use that privilege to build a br...

In this episode, the first of our collaboration with Immigrant Women in Business (IWB), I am speaking with Althea Samuels, a life and money mindset coach, and Patricia Giankas, who fondly calls herself a senior female in tech (SFT) and has spent decade...

In this episode, I'm speaking with Daria Lysenko, who's passionate about helping newcomers settle and find their footing in Canada. Daria spent most of our conversation taking apart a bias I had carried for a bit now. Which is that newcomers/immigrants...

In this episode, I'm speaking with Abu Hafejee, who runs a carpentry business in Toronto, teaches the carpentry apprenticeship program at George Brown Polytechnic, while supporting the Toronto Business Development Centre's (TBDC) Explore Skilled Trades...

In this episode, the last of our four-part series with Immigrant Services Society of BC (ISSofBC), I'm speaking with Hamoudi Saleh Baratta, who filmed the first footage of the Syrian revolution, was imprisoned and tortured for it, and now tells that st...

In this episode, I'm speaking with Kumaran Nadesan, who spent 15 years in the Ontario Public Service in different roles, left to co-found 369 Global and just published a book, The Impolite Canadian. Kumaran thinks that the best kind of citizen is the i...

In this episode, the third in our four-part series with Immigrant Services Society of BC (ISSofBC), I'm speaking with Ajlin Mehmedi, who fled the former Yugoslavia in her early twenties, arrived as a government-assisted refugee with an unfinished degre...

In this episode, I'm speaking with Ramon Calanza, who has worked in trucking for close to twenty years, started out as a recruiter, and now supports Toronto Business Development Centre (TBDC) with their work in the Canadian trucking industry. When most...

In this episode, the second in our four-part series with Immigrant Services Society of BC (ISSofBC), I'm speaking with Ebrahim Al-Yousefi, who fled Yemen as a child during the 2015 war, moved through Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Egypt, and arrived in Can...

In this episode, I'm speaking with Musap Abdelhag, known across Calgary as Moose. He's a first-generation Sudanese-Canadian who grew up here as an immigrant kid, fell into the streets, went back to Sudan in his early twenties, and then moved back to Ca...

In this episode, the first in our four-part series with Immigrant Services Society of BC (ISSofBC), I'm speaking with Dacious Richardson, who came to Canada from Liberia as a refugee in 2011 and has since become a youth mentor and community leader in B...

In this episode, I'm speaking with Abhishek Asthana, co-founder of Shivani's Kitchen, who has spent the last decade learning what it takes to put an immigrant food brand on national shelves. When Sobeys came knocking during COVID and offered to carry t...

In this episode, I'm speaking with Jatin Shory, Partner- Immigration and Refugee Law at Shory Law LLP, and Table Officer (National Immigration Section), Canadian Bar Association. Hundreds of thousands of people sit in the Express Entry today without fi...

In this episode, I'm speaking with Carolyn Watson, who runs CEW Immigration Consulting and spent close to twenty years in the settlement sector before moving into immigration consulting. The work that I think usually has the biggest impact on immigrant...

In this episode, I am speaking with Templeton Sawyer, who who started his career helping newcomers find work as an employment support practitioner, and then co-founded Alive House and built its Belonging Tour, which heads to Calgary and PEI over the ne...

In this episode, I sit down with Theresa Evanoff, Executive Director, Global Angel Investor Network (GAIN), and Tehmina Chaudhry, who founded and runs the Canada Startup Association, and is also a member of GAIN's board of directors. The conversation a...

In this episode, I'm joined by Leah Mitchell and Lindsay Rubeniuk, who've spent years working with newcomers building lives in rural Manitoba and are co-hosts of the Move Rural Canada podcast. If you're thinking of moving to rural Canada, know that the...

In this episode, I am speaking with Vaishali Gauba, who moved from India to the US to study journalism, worked her way to CBS News and the Stephen Colbert Show, then watched her plans change. She moved back to India, became an on-air journalist at an i...

In this episode, I'm speaking with John Hetherington, who moved from England to Canada 20 years ago, and his niece Caitlin White, who landed a few months ago. I think I've said this before, but immigration is like brute force midlife crisis. You do not...

In this episode, I am speaking with Niki Wagh, an educator who's done some great work on naming what the immigrant life feels like. Niki and I explore something we immigrants feel but seem to avoid naming, that is the relentless pressure to over-perfor...

In this episode, I am speaking to Luki Danukarjanto, a soft skills coach who spent over 12 years at Deloitte before leaving to do what he calls the more meaningful work. The rise and rise of AI means the bar for getting hired has gone to the stratosphe...

Note: This conversation was recorded on February 13, 2025. Some policy announcements, including changes to settlement sector funding, have been made since the recording. The themes and principles discussed remain relevant. ---------- In this episode, I...

In this episode, I'm speaking with Victor Neagu, a policy analyst who spent years working in international development across Africa, Asia, and South America before permanently moving to Canada in 2018. This conversation was an opportunity to explore s...

In the 150th episode (whew), I am speaking with David Campbell, formerly Chief Economist with the New Brunswick Jobs Board Secretariat and President of Jupia Consultants Inc, an industry research and economic development consulting firm. The big questi...

In today's episode, I'm speaking to Mo Altaqatqa, Senior Business Development Manager at Futurpreneur. Mo grew up in Jordan, left in 2011, lived in Saudi Arabia, Dubai, and Ukraine before moving to Canada. He's been working with entrepreneurs for over ...

In today's episode, I am chatting with Bontu Galataa, an entrepreneurship ecosystem strategist and Founder of Sayyoo Consulting, a social impact business consultancy about the mistakes immigrant entrepreneurs make and more. Bontu has met and still meet...

In this episode, I'm speaking with Emmanuel Ahiafor, who started travelling solo to Russia in his first year of university, visited over 15 countries, moved to Budapest because of a song, and now lives in New Brunswick with his family. When I asked him...

In today's episode, I'm speaking with Busayo Disu, a pharmacist turned intercultural communication advocate who moved from Nigeria to Sherwood Park, Alberta in 2019. Since that time, she's launched the African Society of Strathcona County, written a ch...

In today's episode, I'm speaking with Abdullah Sharief, Co-Founder and CMO of Panda Hub, North America's leading mobile car detailing platform. Abdullah studied medicine in Turkey, came to Canada in 2018, and has gone on to build arguably Canada's bigg...

In today's episode, I'm speaking with Maria Kamila González, the co-founder of Finanzo, a non-profit organization in Toronto that believes in making newcomers financially aware and has impacted the lives of 100,000 immigrants in the US and Canada. Mari...

In today's episode, I'm chatting with Mustafa Ansari, Director of Marketing of Toronto Business Development Centre (TBDC), who's made it a personal mission to get more immigrants into trucking and the skilled trades. Mustafa moved from Pakistan to Cana...

In today's episode, I'm talking with Diana Palmerín Velasco of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce about how we go about rebuilding trust in Canada's immigration system. Diana moved to Canada in 2011 with all the credentials you'd think would make settlin...

In today's episode, I'm talking to the brilliant and straight-shooting Ruairi Spillane, who runs Moving2Canada and Outpost Recruitment. Ruairi is one of the OGs when it comes to helping newcomers move to Canada, find jobs, and settle in nicely. So he w...

In our first episode of 2026, I'm speaking with Rodrigo Cotrim de Carvalho, a Brazilian food researcher and educator who left Rio de Janeiro for Ottawa, Canada, through the now shuttered Startup Visa program. There's a lot to reflect on here, folks. Bu...

In the last episode of 2025, I’m chatting with Deanna Okun-Nachoff, an immigration lawyer and host of the Borderlines Podcast, about where Canada’s immigration system stands six months into the Carney government. Any sense of accountability on the part...

In this episode, I’m speaking with Aashrit Parvangada, a historical nerd based in Berlin, and one of the best folks to chat with about geopolitics, nationalism, and immigration. I must say this was a sobering conversation, but also an enlightening one ...

In this episode, I’m chatting with Rania Younes, who grew up as a third-culture kid in Kuwait, attended the American University in Cairo, and built a career in Dubai before ultimately settling in Canada. When Rania’s family moved to Canada, she had to ...

In this episode, I’m chatting with Dapo Bankole, a project manager and founder of Mentorfy. His viral TEDx talk, “ The Hidden Struggles and Triumphs of Immigrant Professionals in Canada,” is painfully relevant to loads of immigrants looking to settle i...

In this episode, I’m chatting with Precious Kolawole, who moved from Nigeria to Canada through the Shopify Dev Degree program, and has also seen her TEDx talk “How coding can change your life-and the world” go viral. There’s a trap that awaits most imm...

In this episode, I’m speaking with Bryan McInnis, who moved from the United States to Kampala, Uganda with his wife and two daughters. Every immigrant has felt the tension of the pull towards your people as you settle into the new country. The comfort ...

In this episode, I’m speaking with Simon Trevarthen, who leads the Toronto Region Immigrant Employment Council (TRIEC). A big part of their work is helping helping immigrants see their skills through a different lens while helping employers access tale...

In this episode, I’m speaking with Aman Chawla, who moved from India to Fredericton, New Brunswick in 2023. Canada wasn’t Aman’s first choice when he and his wife started considering immigrating. He wanted Ireland. The time-zone difference wasn’t much....

In this episode, I’m speaking with Yauhan Mehta, a career coach who’s helped 750+ immigrants land jobs they love at global companies. A major part of his success is an interesting approach he takes to career coaching. He won’t start coaching with resum...

In this episode, I’m speaking with Selene Ricart, who moved from Argentina to Canada five years ago. There’s this unspoken rule about being the good and perfect immigrant. Don’t say too much. Stay in your box. Be grateful. And if you ever step out of l...

In this episode, I’m speaking to Rim Aoude, marketer, poet, and all-round amazing human. Rim moved from UAE to Canada as a teenager. And we explore what it means when you’re born without a place to call home. Her granddad left Palestine. Her parents we...

In this episode, I’m speaking with Kundan Joshi, Founder and CEO of TheAppLabb & AI Labb, a leading app innovation firm that boasts of clients like Unilever, Samsung, Dell, Suncor, Petro Canada, RBC, TIFF, among others. However, Kundan fell into entrep...