Dapo Bankole

Media kit

Bios, photos and signature files for event organisers, hosts and editors. Please credit photos as shown.

How to say my name

Dapo Bankole: DAH-paw BAHN-kaw-leh Hear it

Bios

  • Short

    Dapo Bankole is a Calgary-based doctoral researcher at Royal Roads University, founder of Mentorfy and host of The Immigrant Life podcast. He studies why Canada selects skilled immigrants for their talent and then asks them to start over, and what mentoring, employers and policy can do about it.

    48 words

  • Medium

    Dapo Bankole is a doctoral researcher at Royal Roads University, where he studies mentoring mismatches and skilled immigrant integration in Canada. He arrived in Calgary in 2012 as a telecoms manager with twelve years of experience, then spent nine months in transition jobs before his career restarted. That experience shapes everything he has built since: The Immigrant Life, a newsletter, podcast and community for first-generation Canadian immigrants; Mentorfy, mentoring software for Canadian organisations, including immigrant-serving programmes; and his research, which names a problem he calls deferred selection. A TEDxRRU speaker and the founder and president of Mopheth Systems, he serves on the boards of Momentum and Windmill Microlending. His first book, The Confidence Rebuild Blueprint, is coming in 2027.

    119 words

  • Long

    Dapo Bankole is a doctoral researcher, founder and speaker whose work asks one question: what happens to skilled immigrants after they land?

    Born in Lagos and educated in Nigeria, he built a career in telecommunications, rising to manage provisioning and resource management for Globacom across Nigeria, Ghana and Benin. He moved to Calgary in 2012 and, despite twelve years of experience, spent nine months in call centres, night shifts and cargo work before a YWCA employment programme opened the door to a business analysis role at Shaw.

    Since then he has founded Mopheth Systems, where he is president; The Immigrant Life, a newsletter, podcast and community for first-generation Canadian immigrants, and its Thrive Conference; and Mentorfy, mentoring software for Canadian organisations, including immigrant-serving programmes. In the Doctor of Social Sciences programme at Royal Roads University, he studies how mismatches between mentors and mentees shape skilled immigrants' integration. He calls the wider pattern deferred selection: Canada selects skilled talent, then sidelines it.

    A TEDxRRU speaker whose perspectives have appeared on CBC and in Business Insider, he serves on the boards of Momentum, where he chairs the Strategy and Risk Committee, and Windmill Microlending, which once helped him restart his own career. He holds a Master of Arts in Leadership from Royal Roads University and the PMP and FIMC designations, and received the university's Alumni Community Changemaker Achievement Award in 2025. His first book, The Confidence Rebuild Blueprint, is coming in 2027. He lives in Calgary.

    244 words

Titles for introductions and captions

  • Dapo Bankole, Doctoral Researcher, Royal Roads University
  • Dapo Bankole, Founder, Mentorfy
  • Dapo Bankole, Host, The Immigrant Life podcast
  • Dapo Bankole, Founder and President, Mopheth Systems
  • Dapo Bankole, Board Member, Momentum and Windmill Microlending

Optional line an MC can use:
Navigator · Catalyst · Policy Architect

Photos

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In the media

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