The Newcomers Podcast

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...