My Immigrant Story Nino Melikidze

Disclaimer: This is a special episode of My Immigrant Story! Typically we bring Canadian newcomer professionals and entrepreneurs to learn more about their immigration journey. However this time, our guest is an immigrant HR tech professional who works for a known Canadian HR startup.

Parveen is an experienced HR tech professional who has worked in leading
Canadian startups for multiple years. She started her career in recruiting and currently holds a senior position as a Customer Success Lead at HiredHippo – a hiring marketplace where companies get instant access to high-potential vetted candidates, and where professionals are matched instantly with jobs they love.

Disclaimer: This is a special episode of My Immigrant Story! Typically we bring Canadian newcomer professionals and entrepreneurs to learn more about their immigration journey. However this time, our guest is a first generation Canadian immigrant serial entrepreneur who moved to the country when he was quite young and has since founded multiple companies in a wide variety of industries.

Roy is a Canadian serial entrepreneur, startup mentor, and angel investor. He has extensive experience building companies and leading multi-disciplinary teams. His tech background enables him to gain unique insights regarding today’s technology market and determine business strategies. Roy has over a decade of experience building and scaling businesses in various industries including Advertising, Security, Networking, and Software.

Disclaimer: This is a special episode of My Immigrant Story! Typically we bring Canadian newcomer professionals and entrepreneurs to learn more about their immigration journey. However this time, our guest is a licensed Canadian immigration consultant and serial entrepreneur with multiple years of experience working with immigrants, partners and companies.

Blayne is the founder of Bright Immigration, Toronto's leading immigration consultancy. Blayne is also the co-founder and CSO (Chief Strategy Officer) of Immitracker, an immigration application tracker and service marketplace for immigrants relocating to Canada and Australia. As a licensed immigration consultant, Blayne has applied his expertise and creativity to the world of immigration. Additionally, Blayne has extensive knowledge in business as a serial entrepreneur.

Nino and Blayne currently run Immitracker together – their goal is to simplify the immigration process by helping immigrants learn about and take advantage of life-changing opportunities. To learn more about Immitracker and discover the helpful, free immigration tools and marketplace of services offered, check out immitracker.app (https://www.immitracker.app/)

Helpful resources mentioned during the episode: 


Introducing Immitracker - your trusted immigration journey guide
Canadian Permanent Residence Application Tracker
Canadian PR Card Tracker

Prateek Bawa is a partnerships manager with over 10 years of experience in various industries including FinTech, SaaS, and E-commerce. Currently, he’s a is a Partner Consultant at Freshbooks – a company that builds accounting software for self-employed individuals and their teams.

Additionally, Prateek is an ambassador at Arrive – a platform for enabling newcomers to settle in Canada and Immigrant Networks. He is also a member of several professional organizations focused on partnerships and sales career development.

During the episode, Prateek highlights the importance of starting your LinkedIn networking process early on to help yourself setup quickly upon arriving to Canada. Additionally, he mentions how staying focused on your journey and goals and not comparing yourself to others can help you succeed. 

P.S. Interested in networking with fellow immigrant professionals? Check out the VisaWire Community: https://community.visawireapp.com/

Janey Buzugbe (Janey Buz) is a startup founder, career coach, and program mentor and consultant. She has been running her own YouTube channel for over five years. In this channel she provides relevant resources for newcomer students and professionals to navigate their careers and education in Canada.

Janey is now the founder of Immiducation, a career and education network of immigrants by immigrants. This global network support immigrants by accelerating their success through learning programs & resources, community and job matching. Additionally, Janey is a Program Mentor & Consultant for the DMZ, a tech startup growth incubator based out of Ryerson University in Toronto.

Nino and Janey originally connected through the Toronto tech startup community over their shared passion for the immigration space and helping immigrant professionals succeed in Canada. During the episode, Janey discusses some of the strategic decisions she made (e.g. attending a prestigious university) that brought her to this point in her career - pursuing her entrepreneurial passion.

She also cover the importance of planning your Canadian journey in advance - thinking about your future career and settlement even before landing in the country. Where you could possibly work, what careers could be a good fit, and long term professional growth vision in general. Janey highlighted the risk of getting stuck in a low income, survival job longer term if a person doesn’t plan their career growth in advance.

Helpful resources mentioned during the episode:


Janey’s career coaching and professional development services can be found here.
Janey’s Youtube channel for newcomer students and professionals called JaneyofCanada can be found here! There, she provides helpful information and resources about settling in Canada.



P.S. Interested in networking with fellow immigrant professionals? Check out the VisaWire Community: https://community.visawireapp.com/

Aashni Shah is the Founder and CEO of Mido – a product that allows users and companies to securely store and share their personal documents. She’s also the Founder of HypeDocs, an app that helps users track their achievements and gain confidence.

Aashni graduated from the University of Toronto with a degree in Computer Science. Prior to pursuing her passion for entrepreneurship, she worked as a Software Engineer at Microsoft and Square. Nino and Aashni actually connected over their shared passion for entrepreneurship and being actively involved with Toronto’s tech ecosystem and various startup communities.

During the episode we discuss some of the differences between pursuing a higher education in Canada compared to the US along with the importance and benefits of joining clubs and extracurricular activities in university.

Aashni also goes into how gaining unique experiences is helpful both for your professional development and candidate profile. That coupled with going out of your way to meet new people can help international students and immigrant professionals set themselves up for career success in Canada!



P.S. Interested in networking with fellow immigrant professionals? Check out the VisaWire Community: https://community.visawireapp.com/