How an Immigrant Doctor Helps Gen Z Tackle AI Job Loss Using Employability Scores - Jasmine Sayyari

Jasmine Sayyari: That's when I thought, what if I build something that helps people find opportunities in places they can't even imagine and they're not aware of it.

Jay Combs: Today's guest is Jasmine Sayyari. She is an exited founder, CEO of New Generation Network and a 2025 Inspiring Fifty UK winner. A former medical doctor, she moved into business development in 2020 and now builds in the startup space. She's currently founder of Chanci AI, a career platform that shows how job market ready you are with data-backed insights and uncovers hidden opportunities in the job market.

Was there a moment when you knew, hey, this isn't my career? Did you have insight at that time as to what you should do next?

Jasmine Sayyari: So, I had this choice of not doing it. I don't feel like I'm going to practice for the rest of my life and I need a change in my life. This is not for me. It was like okay a lot of things happening around AI and I have no background in AI.

So I started learning prompt engineering from scratch. It was back then people are approaching me asking how you did that switching your career how we can do the same thing and the time I was like okay maybe I can build something around that. How about I build something that AI really help people do the same thing I did. traditional career path like LinkedIn, most of them just walk based on what you search.

How a candidate is supposed to search something that doesn't know it exists? You said 170 million new jobs will be in the market. What are these new jobs? How am I supposed to search that?

So, I believe we need to completely change how we show opportunities to candidates and that's exactly what we are doing through Chanci AI.

Jay Combs: How do you know when it's time to go on to the next thing? Sounds like you've left the legacy, but you're hungry for something else. You keep moving. So, what is it that tells you it's time to move on to the next step?

Jasmine Sayyari: Good question. The answer is very complex. Always watch carefully. What

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Don't miss out. Welcome to the Good Decisions Podcast. the podcast about the pivotal choices shaping careers, technologies, and the future of AI. I'm your host, Jay Combs.

Each episode, we sit down with leaders who have faced complex challenges, founders who pivoted from one career to another, innovators preparing people for a future shaped by AI, and entrepreneurs who have had to choose between what's easy and what's right. We talk so much about, you know, the AI and the technology and the data for making decisions at enterprises, but we don't often talk about the people behind that who are actually making decisions. So that's what this podcast is about. It's about those people, how they make decisions, and the moments that got them to be the leaders in AI.

Today's guest is Jasmine Sayyari, CEO and founder of the New Generation Network and creator of Chanci AI, a platform for helping people understand and improve their job market readiness through data-driven insights. Jasmine's journey is remarkable. She began as a medical doctor in Iran where she was on the front lines of the COVID crisis. She then pivoted to business development, uh, moved to Turkey and now lives in London, award-winning startups at the intersection of AI in the future of work.

She's an Inspiring Fifty UK 2025 winner, published commentator, and a passionate advocate for helping people thrive as technology transforms the job market. Welcome, Jasmine.

Jasmine Sayyari: Oh, hello, Jay. Thank you for having me.

Jay Combs: So great to have you today. really uh really appreciate the time. I know you're very busy. You were just at Parliament in London at a uh special uh conference.

But uh before we get into that, I want to kind of go back to the start of your career. You studied medicine at the Shahroud University of Medical Sciences. Uh how did you I guess start your career? Had you always wanted to be a doctor or were you into technology?

Like what brought you to medicine?

Jasmine Sayyari: simple answer is I was a really good student uh in high school a total nerd I don't look like one anymore but um it was a destination of every nerd in high school like go to med school and my mom is a dentist my baba is a is an electric engineer so they were like okay you should become a doctor it was very typical middle eastern family you are a doctor engineer or disappointment for the whole family So I was like 17 and I was like okay whatever and I moved to another city to study medicine. I had so much money to study medicine for seven years. It was like that in Iran. It was seven years a straight from 18 to 25 and I feel like my frontal lobe shaped totally during medical school.

how I still do things based on what I learned there. But it was my passion for helping people but also uh I was conditioned by the family and society want me to become a doctor.

Jay Combs: Yeah, I think it's pretty common. I mean even here in the US uh doctors, lawyers, it provides a very set career path. often parents are there and people follow in that footsteps uh in their footsteps because it is a very prescribed uh path but your it sounds like your father was an electrical engineer. Was there a tech side or did you have a tech itch or entrepreneurial itch before you got to school and now that you kind of look back on it was there something in your youth that says hey you know what that was a precursor to me pivoting to tech and entrepreneurship.

Jasmine Sayyari: Uh well my baba had uh his own ventures. My mom also had her own office. So growing up I didn't know it was a term back then. There were entrepreneurs and I had this dream of having my own business but going to med school I totally forgot about it.

Then after graduation I was like oh okay there are things I can do now.

Jay Combs: So you had about two years between graduating medical school and officially becoming a doctor and then uh COVID hitting. What was what was your career like just during that brief span of I guess normality before uh the world changed and before you took a career change as well?

Jasmine Sayyari: So I was a public health medical director. I was leading public health teams and I was also visiting patients. A very normal uh junior doctor. I hate to call it junior doctor because you literally do everything on your own but then COVID happened and they called us for shifts and turned everything into COVID centers and it was a scary.

So people keep their tattoos. I had this bundle of gray hair in front of my head. that's just it, it happened during COVID because of fear of death because every morning it was like I'm I'm going to die today. So what whatever it takes and in Iran after graduation so from public school it's a kind of a scholarship because you don't have to pay for a school you have to practice two years and suburbs and poor neighborhoods.

So the first six months of COVID was the last six months of those two years. So I had this choice of not doing it. I just totally leave everything and I stay home and I was like, oh no, I'm going to do that for my people. Sometimes I look back and I'm like, uh, why did I do that?

But it was completely life-changing. But also changed my perspective. And at the end of those six months, I was like, I don't feel like I'm going to practice for the rest of my life. I need a change in my life.

This is not for me.

Jay Combs: Yeah, I mean it was probably an entire lifetime in those six months or an entire career that was compressed into those uh six months. Was there a moment when you knew I guess maybe at the end of those six months that like kind of what triggered it to say hey this isn't my career and was there did you have insight at that time as to what you should do next? Like what led you to Turkey? Like why was that the next step?

How did that come to your mind?

Jasmine Sayyari: So, um it wasn't it didn't exactly happen like this. Um two months after my last day, uh as a frontliner in a COVID center, I called a friend. I told her, I have an idea. I was so unexpected.

And she was like, okay, let's do it together. I was like, I'm not sure even can if I can pay you. And she said it doesn't matter. And the friend I'm talking about is totally online like we I know her through my Instagram and the idea was selling online services to people who need to learn research and new languages.

So it was during COVID and everything went online but there wasn't enough resources for that. So I jump on the opportunity and launch those services and in a span of one year we turn from 15 instructors to 100 people working globally with us and we were selling services to 5,000 customers each year. It was a big jump and I didn't expect that. So that point usually people ask me like why you did that as a joke but also realistic I said money cuz I didn't need to go to work anymore work as a doctor I was in my room and I was making money and it was also hiring people and it was a time my baba, and you can imagine their generation it was like you're on your phone all say, "Do you want me to find a job for you?"

I was like, "Baba, I'm paying people people working for me." And it's still to this day, uh, they are so confused about the kind of job I'm doing because it's very really hard to explain to them like what is this, what I'm doing, why everything is so unlike. Yeah.

Jay Combs: I mean that's the case I feel like with a lot of the uh may folks mate you're serving with Chanci AI coming into careers now like all the tools that are out there with AI the skill sets that are needed to use these tools kind of change how people work are going to be so foreign to folks who are maybe at the end of their careers right now not that you know older folks aren't going to be learning that those tools or can't but when you grow up digitally native or AI native it's such a different skill skill set and it might there are certainly going to be generational challenges there. Um so really kind of interesting prelude to what you're doing at Chanci. But this first I guess foray into entrepreneurship from uh from doctor to uh e-learning or putting research online. Were you focused on getting research for doctors?

Who were your customers there? And was it kind of like a natural progression from doctor to helping doctors?

Jasmine Sayyari: But actually what I did was using my follower base on my social media and turn them to customers and it wasn't just doctors it was everyone who were passionate about learning. So every time I've been blogging publicly since 2013, I was sharing my journey as a med student and then a graduated doctor. And then I was like, okay, we've been here together learning new things, but how about I give you a kind of service you never experience before and I know you need it because no one else is offering. and I know your pain points and I know what kind of quality you want and they were like we trust you that's why we expanded so fast cuz it was like I was also a customer in the market I was also learning and I knew that what is wrong with the gap in the market and I jump into it.

Got it.

Jay Combs: And so yeah, who were your who were your main customers with this with the service and what was the name what was the name of this platform?

Jasmine Sayyari: It was uh The Pardo Group uh the my first startup and customers were mostly millennials and now Gen Z and they like to learn a new language or learn how to re do research but needed different kind of resources that weren't available back then. Got it. Got it.

Jay Combs: And so how did you so you created this research platform uh you were based in Istanbul, Turkey. How did you go from running this research company to immigrating to London and I guess maybe not leaving that research platform behind but starting a whole new network, the next generation network in London.

Jasmine Sayyari: What happened in between? Um I moved to Dubai from Tehran to Dubai. I didn't like that and moved to Istanbul. I stayed there for two years, expanded my businesses, funded my second startup and then tell the startup it was and it was the beginning of knowing how to manage people, how to run a startup, how to how to sell.

So it was a journey of learning business and um it was

Jay Combs: you're a serial entrepreneur. It wasn't just The Pardo Group like you had multiple companies in there. So what happened with The Pardo Group? When did you end that?

Jasmine Sayyari: I exited that. It is still working. I exited that as a as a CEO and it is still working and people who started with me are still running it and it's still a pretty much trusted uh platform for learning till today and we will stay will stay forever because um that's my legacy but through these projects I met new people and especially people with technical background And when you are a non-technical CEO, it's really hard to find people with the right technical background. They also need to trust you as a leader because many founders are like, I have an idea, so I'm looking for a technical CTO.

And uh software engineers are like, no, I'm not going to build this for you. But I through two years I built this trust between me and other people with technical background. So when I decided to build Chanci AI, I knew I have customers and also I have team. It's just a matter of how I'm going to deliver it.

Jay Combs: So you built up this network of co-founders, technical talent over a series of years starting really during COVID building off of Instagram to launching uh an education platform to a bunch of it sounds like several other startups. Um I don't know if there's any learnings that you had from those kind of in between startups between the next generation network and The Pardo Group but um it's fascinating like how do you know when it's time to go on to the next thing? Is it sounds like you've left the legacy? It's not that these businesses have maybe not worked or fizzled out but you're you're hungry for something else.

You keep moving. So what is it that tells you it's time to move on to the next thing?

Jasmine Sayyari: always watch carefully what is happening economically and politically. I always watch that and based on data out there I decide when it's time to move because when you are living in a country you should always follow what is happening economics and then based on that I predict my next move and I love to be part of a bigger thing. always. So when I was in Turkey, I was making money.

I was happy. I had a big team. But I was like this is not enough for me. I need to do something else in another country.

And um I moved to London to start my masters. And then at the end of that degree I was like okay a lot of things happening around AI and I know I have no background in AI. I know I have no background in technology. So I started uh learning from prompt engineering from scratch and it was back then people are approaching me asking um how you did that like switching your career how we can do the same thing and it was the time was like okay maybe I can build something around that cuz AI is everywhere and how about I build something that AI really help people do the same thing I did and it was successful.

Jay Combs: So I mean I get the sense that you're extremely curious person and switching from two very like medicine at least practicing medicine seems so different than the entrepreneurial space. Is there a decision framework or there a set of values that you hold like very closely that help you make those decisions? Right? because you're not just changing career paths or starting up new ideas, but you've changed cultures and uh countries which adds a layer of complexity and challenge which I think could be a benefit when you're starting in a new market, right?

Like serving you maybe an underserved group. Um so what is that framework that you use? Like you chose Turkey and it sounds like Dubai and then or Dubai then Turkey and then London. What core values or framework did you use to make those decisions other than just you know AI is it's you know obviously a groundbreaking transformational technology but what else is there behind this decision?

Jasmine Sayyari: I love business and I wasn't aware of it because in med school it was so canalized and very in the boxes like you should do a certain kind of thing and then out of med school I was like okay after seven years finally I can breathe and I found my passion in business but the one thing about business is like there is always a room to progress like um you can always get bigger, get better and I call myself a troublemaker and I love to challenge myself. So it's it comes from the way I like to live. So some people are like okay now we prefer to go somewhere quiet and it's just I'm a city girl. I love to live in a big city and I love this nosy lifestyle and challenge myself to it.

Yeah.

Jay Combs: And how when you moved to London, did you have the idea for your new generation network already uh percolating or in place or did you have the idea for Chanci at that point in time or was there another approach? Was it more organic when you got there?

Jasmine Sayyari: So I was in the parliament yesterday and answered the exact same question one of MPs asked me. So it was 2023 I moved to London to start my masters at Kingston University and it was after nearly like three years working as CEO of my own startups which had actually gone really well. Ju just to give you context at the time I saw the masters as a like a real level up for my career. So I realized you don't need a degree to start something you love in a in a even in a completely different industry.

So turned out lots of people were curious about how I did that. So I had so many come up to me asking how did you switch and can I do the same thing and that's when I thought like what if I build something that helps people find opportunities in places they can't even imagine and they're not aware of it. So I already had a team of technical experts and customer base who trusted me and funny immediately they jumped on my waitlist, 9,000 people on waitlist even before launching MVP. Uh so I started doing proper research.

Exactly. It's even surprised me even shocked me. uh at some point I was like okay how am I going to on board these people I don't have resources to do that it's supposed to be like 100 people what are you doing yet so then I started doing proper research I was like oh okay the future of work is about to change drastically and in the next five years we are going to lose 92 million jobs because of AI advancement it's in World Economic Forum reports and millions of people are going to need to reskill and upskill and moved into completely new careers and that was when I knew I had to stop building this and just two weeks ago after four months of really hard work we launched our MVP and events of life. Yeah.

Jay Combs: and just that number that you're talking about you're you came across a study saying even though yeah there's going to be what I think you said 92 million jobs lost to AI and that might just be you know certain jobs going away but also 170 million jobs will be created um and it's that kind of change like any new technology the industrial revolution digital revolution um and now you know the AI component there's that career switch that upskilling that needs to happen which a lot of times folks you know historically have been left behind by that. So, was there when you were doing your research, were there pieces of feedback that were that folks gave to you like I want these skills or I'm concerned about this? Maybe was there one, I don't know, piece of feedback or comment from your research that said, hey, like this is why I need to create Chanci.

Jasmine Sayyari: Oh, yeah. Exactly. Um, so I talked to many college students and to be honest like it I always say this a college student's dream job probably won't even exist the time they graduate. That's the reality with AI evolving so fast.

So it creates a lot of confusion around the future of work and everyone are panicked and confused and but we rely heavily on traditional career platforms like LinkedIn and Indeed at the moment for that. But they already failed us cuz most of them just walk based on what you search. How a candidate supposed to search search something that doesn't know it exists because yeah said 170 million new jobs will be in the market like what are these new jobs? How am I supposed to search that?

So I believe we need to completely change how we show opportunities to candidates and that's that's exactly what we are doing through Chanci AI. So we give users uh an employability score. It's like a credit score but it tells you how job market ready you are and the score is based on realtime competition in the market. But it's calculated using a waiting system that updates constantly.

But uh it's not just that. The powerful part is like it's not just one number. It's across 20 industries. But also candidates get opportunities they can apply in each industry and just it's like unlocking hundreds of hidden opportunities in job market.

So you graduated from I don't know engineering school there is job for you in agriculture but you're not aware of it in aviation industry and you're not aware of it. We're going to show those opportunities to you and positions you can apply directly through the platform.

Jay Combs: So is there actually almost a job board within the platform as well? And where are you getting all these latest um kind of future jobs? How are you pulling them into the system? How do you even know about them?

Jasmine Sayyari: There are resources like you can get access to through their APIs. You can buy those APIs or also companies can post with you and get. So the both ways you can use this data and find it available for some of them available for free some of them you need to buy buy them. So it's very important to at this stage you raise money to get the access to more ideas.

Jay Combs: That's really interesting. So are you working kind of both sides of the market as well like working with companies and governments and you know saying hey we want to make sure that we're aware of what's coming and we can actually help inform you know the labor force on to how to direct those

Jasmine Sayyari: yeah exactly we are watching the whole scene like um there will be shift and you can watch it and see like this in this space we need more workforce and in This is a space look we don't need it need them anymore and you should help people like in the future upskilling and reskilling is much more important than finding opportunities. It's also what we offer through the platform. So it's not just uh employability score. We designed a system that help candidates increase their score with a personalized progress plan.

So we generate a unique progress plan for each industry based on their score and unique background and the data shows more than just giving people opportunities. It matters for the future of work actually helping them reskill and up skill. So it's not about just showing them what opportunities they can apply. It's helping them to improve their score and be more job market ready.

Jay Combs: That's really cool. And did you tap or did you not the through line to your your first startup on the research platform of sharing research and data? Um, obviously the experience is there. It seems like hey, you're plugging that right into your into your new system as well.

Jasmine Sayyari: More than technical side, it was the business side and leadership side. From my first startup, I didn't know anything about business. It was I was so basic and so traditionally doctor I didn't know something exist named Google like that. I was that basic and it just surprises me when I look back I'm like how did you even make money?

I didn't know anything but it was about the people I chose to surround myself with. So there were people I could trust and I was also was open to learn new things. Yeah. So that those things saved me.

But I also learned how to lead people in uncertainty and it was from first startup because it was during COVID like what else you can get from COVID learning how to lead in uncertainty and it saved me and helped me with other startups too. Yeah.

Jay Combs: I mean is that the number one like so in tech people can take themselves very seriously but you know a lot of the times it's not life and death. You came from a world where it was life and death. Was there a lesson from COVID that helps you every day just kind of um level set where you at stay calm or prioritize uh your work for the day? So what's the biggest lesson you took away from being a doctor that you apply to entrepreneurship?

Jasmine Sayyari: I learned how to work pe with people I have zero common background with them career-wise and still be able to deliver the results with them because in medicine you learned how to listen and you do it properly. This is the first lesson doctor listen to people and just go through detail and I'm a good listener when it comes to uh leading a team. I listen to my team members that saved me a lot of time and money.

Jay Combs: So it's so important listening to the market especially in a network business or a platform like Chanci. And you kind of mentioned you've learned like so much at each stage. You came from medical background, so you're just constantly learning the business side of things. One of the challenges with AI u especially um in the UK and in Europe uh there is the EU AI act and when you have an education platform I um I know that AI has applied to um careers and work it can be classified as a high-risk system.

Um, how are you, I guess maybe addressing some of those regulations as you're building out a new system from scratch? How do you think about the regulations and how do you make sure that uh the users are protected?

Jasmine Sayyari: Oh yes. Uh well actually I believe we should always protect humans and advanced AI in their favor. Um just talking about corporates is like more um on the individual side first and foremost thing uh most important thing is data how we protect it and keep it secure and second, upskilling people should be part of every step as we develop our platform and that's why I see what I'm building is fair for both companies and also candidates Yeah.

Jay Combs: And throughout your career, I think you've you've helped underserved markets, underserved segments of folks. Um you've been very I think women focused in some of your endeavors um promoting that. How do you ensure that uh bias and some of the uh other metrics within your AI system are fair, responsible? Um how do you guys approach that?

Jasmine Sayyari: Good question. The answer is very complex is the way you restore data and the way you show it to companies because we are the responsible party in between of showing those data to companies and then and then also showing them who is the top talent but then removing all of the bias. So it's is a first of removing names the gender it's a lot of secrets in between but uh we were still working on it and we try to stay fair between using help of other parties to check us and the one thing about UK they're very considerate about this and you can always find someone to help you going through this it's a lot of barriers as a company but I guess I can understand why we are doing it and somehow I'm proud of UK for doing considering this kind of a stuff when it comes to data

Jay Combs: yeah the trust system is so important do your customers ask about those kind of questions like how do we you know trust the AI do they have questions about it or is it so natural to them at this point because there's so many tools out there this is just a natural progression Um so just curious like what kind of questions you get at trust versus just the ease of use for folks.

Jasmine Sayyari: Yes, good question because I get all sorts of questions regarding um what is going to happen with AI. So many people are scared. They ask you like what about my job? I had a guy approaching and she was like my husband is a radiology resident and is he going to lose his job because of AI and most of questions are like that rather than how you're going to use my data but job market is so messed up at this point people usually ask can you help us find a job rather than please don't show our data to uh companies is but these kind of things mostly coming from regulations and government rather than people.

But uh people are more concerned like are you showing me to all companies or you are just showing your preferred candidates and it's like no you get the same chance and you can hide your score from companies you can also show them your uh score and show them you're progressing. So these are the kind of questions I get mostly but not many people are concerned about their data. Personally I am but when it comes to finding a job they're more like what can you do find a job like absolutely yes.

Jay Combs: It's such a good point. I mean same with you know myself being in the AI uh world with enterprises. We think so much about the yeah repercussions of you know trust governance compliance with rules and regulations that you can sometimes forget about the macro picture of you know people of what do I do with my life how does this affect my career what should I study what are my kids going to do in the future like those are such bigger questions than some of the micro elements that are again extremely extremely important but u it's nice to have that kind of sanity check sometimes too of making sure we see the forest from the trees. Um so yeah really interesting uh insight there and you've made a lot of I would say like risky changes to your life in general like that have paid off really well right like you seem to have a really uh fulfilling journey and you're you're helping a lot of people with your platform but as you look back was there a decision or a jump or change that you made that in hindsight you could do differently now or a decision that given everything you've learned you would have made made differently.

Jasmine Sayyari: But actually if it's a kind of question if you get back to talk to your youngest self uh the answer is it's just you are doing amazing city go ahead but it's a kind of question like what could I what could I change in the past actually nothing um one thing I was obsessed with the idea of going to America and nothing against it, but the past just wasn't for me. And I'm honestly so glad I moved to UK instead because a series of political events and personal experience later made me realize coming here was actually the best thing that could could have happened and moving to UK. UK took my career to a whole new level. I couldn't even imagine.

So it was the obsession and when I look back it was like unnecessary.

Jay Combs: I mean it's interesting as I talk to a lot of entrepreneurs folks who've been in AI or tech for a long time most entrepreneurs the opposite opinion I guess they love you. No, no, it's very forwardlooking, right? Like it's hey, you know what? Like you work with the information that you have like you have a vision.

Uh but very forwardlooking and not um you know backwards looking um which I think is a critical skill set when you're making um businesses, bringing people together, employing people. Um it's yeah, you can play, you know, Monday morning quarterback or second guess yourself later and reflect and learn. But I think that the key thing that I've heard you say is just keep looking forward and it keeps that optimism going. And so the last question I have is what sort of personal tradition do you have or whether it's a you know go-to drink cocktail or um I don't know ritual that you have when you celebrate a big win or a difficult decision.

What's your uh go-to ritual?

Jasmine Sayyari: I usually go for a cocktail and I would say it's a cosmopolitan I'm a it makes sense because I'm a huge Sex and the City fan especially Carrie Bradshaw but I actually never made it at home it's always been a drink I go out for with friends and there is a rooftop bar in Wimbledon 61 Queens Road and that serves the absolute like best version called Twisted Cosmo It's really hard to find it in London. I don't know why it's impossible to find it in so I have to go to Wimbledon for that. But maybe I should start learning how to make it at home.

Jay Combs: There you go. Well, thank you. Thanks for sharing that. That's great.

Great to hear. And thank you so much for your time and uh for the lessons on making good decisions that you've shared with us today. And have a great rest of your week and hope to stay in touch.

Jasmine Sayyari: Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me here and hope you are having a good day, too.

Jay Combs: Thanks so much. All right. Bye-bye.

Jasmine Sayyari: Bye.