Appetite ‘low’ to employ immigrants: Summit tackles challenges
InDaily speaks with one of the founders of Brisbane’s first Immigrant Wealth Summit about the skills Queensland is missing out on.
When Oluwagbenga (Noah) and Tayo Oloja arrived in Australia from Nigeria, they each had two Master’s degrees and nearly a decade of tech, accounting and HR experience – but they both struggled to find work in their fields.
Now the two are partners in both marriage and business, having built on their shared firsthand experience of migrating to a new country to establish SyncSkills, a Brisbane-based company helping migrants move into skilled careers.
With SyncSkills’ first Immigrant Wealth Summit locked and loaded for December, InDaily spoke with Noah Oloja about what he believed was Queensland’s untapped resource of immigrant talent.
“The whole ethos of this event – we want to bring immigrants into one room, and show them what’s possible, so they can learn, they can be more strategic, they can add value, and grow wealth,” Noah said.
He adds that the main struggles many immigrants in Australia experience are a lack of access to industry, a misunderstanding of how money works in a new country and being forced to take a “survival job”.
“I moved here four years ago from the UK because my wife convinced me,” Noah said. “She was kind of stuck in low-skilled survival job, even though she had done her Masters.”
After supporting Tayo through her struggle to find professional work, Noah was able to see the scale of the problem first-hand.
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He said that the biggest barrier immigrants in Australia faced was mindset – saying that after being shut out of their industry, they start to believe it’s impossible to find professional work and give up on their careers.
“When you’re in a new country where you have no support, you don’t have strong money management skills, or if you don’t have emergency funds, savings, things to help you navigate through that moment, then it’s literally full-blown crisis, and we’ve seen many people go through that same situation.”
He explains that after coming to Australia in 2022, he almost ended up stacking shelves and riding Uber because of so many pressures, despite having nine years experience in technology.
By studying the tools, frameworks and skills that Australian employers actually wanted, Noah rebuilt his profile from scratch and within months, landed several Business Analyst roles at leading organisations.
“A lot of immigrants would ask us, like, hey, how did you guys do it? So we decided to go on the journey to help them and that was how we started,” Noah explains.
“I think that Australia is really missing out from a lot of migrant talent, because once I’ve navigated through that, I found there are quite literally thousands of people who are stuck,” Noah said.
“The appetite to hire international talent is very low, I would say.”
What began as a side hustle soon scaled up to become SyncSkills in 2022, which Noah decided to pursue full-time after losing his job last year.
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“We did lots of events last year, which allowed us to help more people to get high-income jobs with government and private companies across Australia, as well as across the UK and Canada through our virtual programme.”
Today, SyncSkills has helped more than 270 graduates from more than 30 countries, including Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya, Brazil, India, Phillipines and South Africa.
With graduates finding work in companies like Westpac, Accenture, RACV, Telstra, KPMG, Woolworths, Uniting, Kinetic IT, Health Partners and Metro.
Noah was also a finalist in the 2026 InDaily Queensland 40 Under 40, which recognised SyncSkill’s work in equipping international professionals secure careers.
When asked what makes the Immigrant Wealth Summit different from other professional events, Noah highlights the summit’s encompassing nature.
“We’re bringing experts from different government and private institutions who will share some of their strategies as immigrants to navigate the system,” he explained.
The summit will also explore health, investment and building success beyond just money, and welcome a special guest.
“Dr Femi Pedro is an ambassador here from Nigeria to Australia and we’re really happy he’s the headliner,” Noah said.
Dr Femi Pedro is a founding member of one of the largest banks in Africa, has been the deputy governor of the largest commercial state in Africa, Lagos, and is the Nigerian High Commissioner to Australia.
“He has written a book called Formula for Wealth, and has timeless strategies to share about computing wealth, but more importantly he has done it for more than 50-something years.”
After hosting multiple career-focused events across multiple cities last year, Noah added that he sees the Immigrant Wealth Summit becoming an annual event in future that expands beyond Brisbane to reflect the company’s country-wide following.
The Immigrant Wealth Summit 2026 will take place at Brisbane Technology Park in Eight Mile Plains on Friday, December 4.
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