Welcome to Resilient Interview, an initiative by Resilient Immigrant where we document the full truth of the immigrant journey, not just the challenges but also the resilience, strategy, and impact. By sharing these stories, we help shape how immigrants are seen, understood, and remembered, providing narrative power that inspires, empowers, and shifts perspectives.

In this feature, we highlight Dwayne Holness, founder of Corex Creative, author, and board member of the Black Screen Office. Below is his complete, unedited interview detailing his journey from Kingston, Jamaica, to establishing a multi-million-dollar creative agency in Toronto.

Where are you from, and what year did you immigrate?

"I was born in Kingston, Jamaica, on January 1, 1988, and immigrated to Canada with my mother, Yvonne, in 1993 when I was five years old. Toronto became home, but Jamaica shaped the parts of me that don't change: the accent that still slips out, the stubbornness, and the belief that you build a life with your own two hands. My mother left everything she knew so I could have a different shot, and that decision is the reason any of this exists."

What do you do today, and how would you describe the contribution you are making?

"I run Corex Creative, a creative agency I built in Toronto to tell cinematic stories for founders, organizations, and cultural institutions that usually get told flat. We've directed work for clients like FACE Coalition, Canadian Tire, and the CBC, and I directed Hodan's Story, a documentary tribute to Hodan Nalayeh that aired on CBC Docs in 2022. Alongside the agency, I'm finishing my first book, Calculated Steps, and investing in multifamily real estate as the long game, building generational stability the same way I'm building the creative company. The contribution I'm trying to make is simple: prove that a kid from Jane and Finch can build a sophisticated creative company, own real assets, and tell our own stories at the highest level, without watering them down to fit someone else's frame."

What moment or experience tested you the most during your immigrant journey? (Share a specific situation rather than a general challenge.)

"The hardest test came in 2012 when I was starting Corex Creative. I was a young Black guy from Jane and Finch telling people I was a founder, and almost no one took me seriously. Before that, I'd grown up on movie sets watching an industry that didn't look like me, picking up the quiet pressure that if I wanted in, I had to shrink myself to fit. I went the other way and built my own path, my own company, and my own version of what a founder in this industry looks like. That decision is still the spine of everything I do."

What did you do differently that allowed you to move forward?

"I stopped trying to get into rooms and started building my own. I treated myself like a founder before anyone else was willing to, signed contracts, took on clients, and showed up as if Corex was already real, because that's the only way it ever becomes real. The mindset shift was understanding that no one was coming to hand me an industry, so I had to build one I could stand inside of. That's why I called my book Calculated Steps; every move was deliberate, even when it looked slow from the outside, and that patience is what compounded into the company and life I have now."

What has your immigrant background given you that you would never trade?

"My authenticity and my rawness. Coming from Jamaica and growing up in Jane and Finch gave me a baseline that nothing in the industry could polish out, and I'm grateful for that now, even if it cost me opportunities along the way. I don't know how to perform a softer version of myself, and that has become my actual edge. The work I make, the way I talk to clients, the way I tell stories on screen, all of it comes from a place that hasn't been filtered. If I'd grown up trying to fit a different mold, Corex wouldn't exist, and the films I'm proudest of wouldn't either."

What is an achievement you are proud of that people don't fully understand the weight behind? What did it actually take to get there?

"Building Corex Creative into a multi-million-dollar company. From the outside it looks like a clean trajectory, agency, clients, films, awards, but what people don't see is the fourteen years between starting in 2012 and getting here. No investors, no industry inheritance, no parents in the business, just me and a small team chipping at it through years when nobody was watching. The discipline part is real, but the harder part was holding the vision steady when the bank account didn't match the ambition, when peers walked away, and when the math was telling me a kid from Jane and Finch isn't supposed to build a creative company at this scale. Getting here meant outlasting that math."

How are you actively shaping how immigrants are perceived through your work, leadership, or presence?

"Through the films I direct, the work my agency takes on, and the table I sit at as a board member of the Black Screen Office, I'm trying to shift the immigrant narrative away from struggle-only storytelling. Hodan's Story, the documentary I directed for CBC Docs, was a tribute to Hodan Nalayeh, a Somali-Canadian journalist who spent her career showing Somali Canadians the way they actually are, not the way the news cycle reduced them to. Jamaica Strong, the feature I'm developing now, comes from the same place. My book Calculated Steps puts my own immigrant story on the page so the version that gets recorded is mine, not someone else's interpretation of it. Leadership for me is about who controls the camera and who controls the pen, and I've spent the last decade making sure more of those hands look like ours."

What do immigrant professionals need to hear early that they are almost never told? (Be honest and direct.)

"Stay true to your roots; don't switch up. The version of you that tries to fit in will never lead, because nobody follows a polished imitation of someone else. The instinct, the accent, the family weight, the way you see things differently because you grew up between two worlds, all of that is your actual edge, not the thing to apologize for or smooth out. Most immigrant professionals are taught to assimilate and then wonder why they hit a ceiling. The truth is that ceiling is built out of every piece of yourself you traded to get into the room."

Describe your immigrant journey in one word.

"Calculated"

Complete this: "I am a Resilient Immigrant, and I belong where I...

"build my own rooms."

Dwayne’s journey is a blueprint for what happens when you refuse to smooth out your edges to fit someone else's mold. Every step is intentional. Every room is earned.

By documenting the full truth of the immigrant experience, moving past struggle-only narratives to highlight true strategic impact, we change how our community is seen, understood, and remembered.