It can be challenging for newcomers to adjust to the new Canadian life and maximize their potential. When Ayo Owodunni immigrated to Canada from Nigeria, he faced a series of barriers but didn’t let anything bring him down.
Watch the video to learn more about Ayo Owodunni’s success story. With his grit and determination, today he’s not only a thriving management consultant and diversity expert but also the host of The Immigrant View with Ayo podcast, and CBC’s How to Canada – a radio broadcast for immigrants.
Video transcript:
Ayo Owodunni:
My wife first arrived, and a year later, I joined her. After she got her job, we were starting afresh. We knew there were gonna be challenges ahead, but we knew long-term there was gonna be a great opportunity. I remember finding a place for us was hard because we didn’t have credit history. So, trying to find a place where, especially in Kitchener at that point in time, a place where someone had no credit history to get a place, we had to find a cosigner to sign a document with us before we could get a place to stay. But the place that we ended up staying was a shady environment… All sorts of craziness in this place, but that was the only place we could find that we could call residence.
Finding a job was hard as well. I applied and applied between my first and second job, and I had a situation where for months I couldn’t find anything. I was very frustrated. My first job that I got here in Canada was a very frustrating one as well, because when I was hired, I was hired to come in and take over a department and do some amazing things, but my boss didn’t allow me to do any work. You know, it felt like, you know, you’re from Africa, you don’t know what we do here or how we do things, so let me tell you how it’s done. And there was just, we clashed and butt heads a lot. I was let go after three-four months within the organization. So finding a job was hard. Keeping a job was hard. Understanding the culture was hard. And it was a very, very challenging time for me.
But the way I overcame those challenges was, number one, sticking through. Number two, humility. I needed to, I felt like I needed to reset my brain and learn things all over. I needed to learn about the workplace culture here in Canada. I needed to understand that I was in a new place and I can’t walk in, like I owned everything. I had to learn how things were done here. And then also the importance of building my network, because through my network, I was able to develop a support system, and I was able to get better advice from people who have been here longer. So back home in Nigeria, I worked in radio and TV broadcasting for a while. And on the side as well, I was doing consulting work: training and development and consulting for corporate organizations.
So when I moved over here, I didn’t even bother trying to go into radio and TV. And the reason being, you know, I felt, you know, here you are, this African, this black person with a Nigerian accent, and you’re coming over here and you want to go on TV. Oh, you gotta be kidding me. Like, relax, calm yourself down. And for some reason, I just didn’t see myself being able to get into that space here. So I didn’t even bother trying. And I just went into the consultant field because I felt that if I can get my MBA, if I can get the certifications required, that would be an easier area and direction to go into. And there are many times where immigrants here, you’re faced with those types of decisions as well, where your career path in another country, when you come here, suddenly it’s more competitive here, or there’s just a limited amount of radio or TV stations or you know, that in the economic world were transitioning out of those technologies and those spaces and moving into a new place. So, you don’t want a situation where you can’t find a job because we’re transitioning out of that and we’re moving into something else as a society.
So you need to do your research around your industry, and you need to make a decision. Is this the career and industry path that I still want to go through? Or do you want to start and try something new and transfer your skills? And I’ve heard many immigrants say they change career paths here because it was harder, or because they realized, Hey, you know what, this is not the path that Canada is going, just like my country, so I need to figure something else out. So it’s one of those decisions that need to be made, and I strongly suggest that people make those decisions.
Somehow, I wanted to stay away from radio, but I ended up back in radio, which is quite interesting. So I have a radio show on CBC now called How to Canada, which is very exciting. I have a podcast as well, which I’m quite excited about. I’m on several boards. I’m on the board of an organization called Adventure for Change. They do a lot of great work in the community in Kitchener and Waterloo, so it’s great to be a part of that. I’m on the board of Leadership Waterloo, developing leadership curriculum and training for leaders in our community. I have a real estate practice as well, where I raise money with investors. We buy properties, apartment buildings, and we rent them out to people. The sky is the limit in Canada. You can become anything you want to be; don’t allow anyone to hold you back.
If you found Ayo’s journey inspiring, we’ve got more for you in our Newcomer Rise Up series on Canadian entrepreneur achievers. All 12 episodes of Season 1 are live on our website.
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