Canada selects skilled immigrants for their talent. Then it asks them to start over.

I lived through that. Now I build tools that help employers and immigrants trust one another, and at Royal Roads University I research the systems that perpetuate this waste of talent.

I'm Dapo Bankole. I've spent more than 25 years building the systems organisations run on, and my work points at one goal: a zero-waste talent economy.

Invite me to speak Read the research

Watch my TEDx talk · 65,000+ views

Dapo Bankole smiling, wearing a sage-green blazer over a black shirt, hands clasped, against a light studio background.

Doctoral researcher, Royal Roads University
Master of Arts in Leadership, Royal Roads University
TEDxRRU speaker
Fellow, Institute of Management Consultants – Nigeria
Project Management Professional (PMP)
Board member, Windmill Microlending and Momentum

Featured in: CBC Radio · CBC News · Business Insider · The Teju Babyface Show

Deferred selection

Canada admits people for what they can do. Then hiring rooms, licensing bodies and now immigration rules ask them to prove it again, in Canada, before it counts.

Selection hasn't failed. It has been postponed, and the cost of the wait falls on the newcomer, their family and every employer short of the skills they brought.

Read about the research

One problem, seen from three sides

Lived it

Arrived in 2012 with twelve years of experience

Call centre shifts, grocery nights and airport cargo came before the career Canada had selected me for. I know the gap from the inside.

My story
Built for it

Delivering systems that have to work, since 2000

Large telecom programmes, an enterprise consultancy since 2015, and Mentorfy, software for running mentoring programmes well.

My work
Studying it

Doctoral research at Royal Roads University

Why pre-employment mentoring so often misses: mismatches between mentors and protégés, and what they cost skilled newcomers. Work in progress.

The research