Yazad Dalal on Growth, Trust, and AI in HR

Hi, I’m Yaz, head of growth at Joveo. Curiosity, plus the will to say when I do not know something, has shaped my path.

When Oracle hired me about ten years ago to promote HR services in the cloud, I was eager to promote the new tech. But I had one big gap: I had no experience in business tech. I had spent five years in a recruitment advertising agency. I knew talent attraction and HR services, but I still had to win over Fortune 500 firms with a tool that was new to them and to me.

Summary

Yazad Dalal says curiosity, humility, and truth shape how he leads and grows in HR tech. He says Joveo wants the early majority by letting customer wins build trust. He also explains how AI, automation, and recruiting automation can lift the candidate and recruiter experience, while the future of work and AI still points to human creativity and original thought.

Curiosity Beats Expertise

I had two choices: fake it or live with not knowing.

I chose curiosity. Curiosity only works when you can say, ‘I do not know.’ If you can say, ‘I do not get this, help me,’ learning gets much easier. I stopped faking it and leaned into curiosity. Saying I did not know became a strength. It helped me build trust and learn in places where I was often the least tech-savvy person.

That gap at Oracle taught me a lesson I still use at Joveo.

Growth Means the Early Majority

At Joveo, growth has a clear meaning: it depends on the stage of the company and on what we are building.

We have done well with innovators and early adopters who saw the value of AI and automation in talent acquisition. Now we are focused on the early majority. In AI adoption in HR, that is the next step. For us, growth means winning that next group as fast as we can.

That group wants proof and calm from peers before they move.

Customers Tell the Story

The best way to reach the early majority is to let our customers tell the story.

When Fortune 100 firms and global staffing firms explain how our platform changed hiring, it carries more weight than any pitch. One reason I joined Joveo was a customer video where a client said working with Joveo was a dream.

Their wins build trust and create a group of believers who help us grow.

Transparency Builds Trust

Why are customers willing to back us? It comes down to truth.

At Joveo, we believe trust starts with truth. Clients should not send money into a black hole. They deserve to know how their spend is doing, where their best candidates come from, and whether they are using the latest tools.

When people cannot see what is happening, doubt grows. We know how hard it is not to see ROI in hiring, and we want to fix that.

AI Adoption in HR: What We Are Building

What excites me most about Joveo’s future is that our tech gives agency back to candidates and recruiters.

For candidates, that means clear status updates through AI chat tools and faster answers to their questions. That is candidate experience automation in action.

For recruiters, we are closing the gap between the right people and the right jobs while taking over the repeat work. That kind of recruiting automation frees recruiters to treat every candidate with care, whether the role is hourly or at the top of the org chart.

The Future of Work and AI Stays Human

People worry that AI will replace human jobs. I think that view is wrong.

The future of work and AI will be about creativity, ideas, and human skill. AI in recruiting can copy and remix, but even when it makes art or music, it leans on what came before. Original work and warmth are our edge.

As machines take over repeat tasks, more of us will move into work that asks for human skill. That is not a step down. It is the upgrade we have been waiting for. Talent acquisition automation can clear the path, but people will still bring the spark.

Building the Next Stage

Right now, we are focused on winning the early majority through customer wins and open partnerships. But ask me again in a year, and I will be talking about the next stage of the curve.

This is the moment. Our next wave of clients will benefit from faster innovation built for them. We are building a new playbook for talent acquisition automation, showing how AI and automation can improve the hiring experience for everyone. If we keep doing this right, our customers will keep telling the story for us. That is the heart of recruiting automation and a better AI adoption in HR journey.

Curious what the rest of our leaders have to say? Explore the full series on YouTube.

Video Transcript

Jennifer: Here with Yaz, Head of Growth. You have 20+ years driving revenue, strategy, and operations. You have worked across North America, Asia, and Europe. You also bring thought work in AI, HR, and the future of work, plus roles at Accenture and Oracle. We will talk about growth, scale, and what growth looks like in HR tech.

Yaz: I’m excited to do it.

Jennifer: You have had a great career, from strategy at Oracle to innovation work at Accenture. What moments shaped how you lead and grow today?

Yaz: The first word that comes to mind is curiosity. I joined Oracle after years in a recruitment marketing advertising agency. I had never worked in business software. My knowledge of technology was not very deep. I had to learn fast, and a big part of my job was to promote what was then the hot new tech: cloud tech. Curiosity was the driver. If I did not have it, I think I would have failed. Curiosity and the will to admit how much I did not know went hand in hand. If you cannot admit that you do not know something, learning gets even harder.

Jennifer: I agree with that. I am a help person too. ‘Help! I do not get this!’ At Joveo, you are leading growth during fast change in talent acquisition. What does growth mean to you here, and how are you chasing it?

Yaz: It means different things based on the stage of the company. It also depends on what you are building or trying to sell. For us, because we work in artificial intelligence, machine learning, and automation, a lot of what we talk about is new. Over the past few years, we have had strong success with early users, the innovators and early adopters. Now we are looking for the early majority. In this AI adoption in HR cycle, that is the next step. For this moment, growth means winning that next group as fast as we can. The best way to do that is not just to tell our own story, but to let customers tell it. If huge Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 firms, and the global staffing firms we work with, share how our work drives their success, that will help us build growth and reach the early majority.

Jennifer: We can do that. What should the next part of the graph look like?

Yaz: The next wave of clients will benefit from faster innovation that is built for them. We are building a new playbook for talent acquisition automation. We show how AI and automation can improve the hiring experience for everyone. If we keep getting this right, our customers will keep telling the story for us. That is the heart of recruiting automation and a better AI adoption in HR journey.

Jennifer: With your background in AI and HR, and your view of the future of work, how will tech change recruiting over the next few years?

Yaz: Two changes stand out. First, we need to give more power to candidates. They need more clear updates, more insight, and more control. What happened to my application? What do I need to do next? Am I ready? There is a huge chance to make the candidate experience much better through candidate experience automation. We can do that with recruitment chatbots and other tools that let a person talk with an employer through a chat AI agent that knows the full state of their application. Why not ask and get an answer?

The second change is on the employer side. Recruiters in every role, from hourly work to senior jobs, should get time back so they can treat each candidate like a person, not a number. All the dull, repeatable work should be done by an agent. Then recruiters can focus on dignity, care, and the same kind of service that executive search firms give to top leaders. That is exciting for both candidates and employers. Joveo is focused on simpler advertising and more open reporting for employers and agencies.

Jennifer: How does your global experience shape how you solve these shared problems?

Yaz: When I think about truth and transparency, I always come back to this: if I know the truth, I can trust. That is it. We all know that trustworthy systems and trustworthy companies do better. So our goal is to make sure every customer, client, and partner knows the truth. If they know how their money is being spent, where their best candidates come from, and that they have the best tools and the latest automation, trust goes up. In any business, if you want customers for life, you have to keep their trust. Transparency and trust go hand in hand.

Jennifer: I agree. As a practitioner, it was hard to know where my budget went, which channel gave the best ROI, and what source led to an actual hire. That kind of openness is hard to find. Companies like Joveo are one of the few that offer it. It is cool what we do every day. You are also committed to talent and diversity. What advice would you give to new leaders who want to make a real impact?

Yaz: The first thing is to not be afraid to speak up, and also speak out. Diversity has many forms. In the US, people often think only of race or gender, but there is also diversity of thought, experience, class, creed, and sexuality. Even within white men, there are many types of people, so there is diversity there too. Speaking up means letting people know how you think. Speaking out means making sure the voices of others are heard. If people know what you stand for and see you stand up for others, that is what leaders do. If someone is not brave enough or strong enough to do that, they have work to do if they want that strength and confidence.

Jennifer: I agree with that. I love that answer. What is next for Joveo’s growth path? What are you most excited about?

Yaz: What excites me most is building believership and followership. A big part of my role, and of many of my colleagues, is to create the new gospel around how to use the tools we have in AI, machine learning, and automation to make work better and make job search better. If we get that gospel right, we will create believers. Then those believers, our customers, become the ones who spread the word. That lets us focus on building great things while they tell our story. In marketing, you might call that social proof. To me, that is very exciting. I want us to reach a place where the work we do and the problems we solve speak for us.

Jennifer: No, and the church say amen on that one.

Yaz: Amen.

Jennifer: Before we get into rapid fire, where can people reach you or contact you? LinkedIn?

Yaz: LinkedIn. linkedin.com/in/yazad/

Jennifer: Perfect. Rapid fire Q and A, are you ready?

Yaz: I’m ready.

Jennifer: Boardroom or classroom, where do you feel most energized?

Yaz: They feel the same to me. I have spent much of my career trying to promote ideas and tell our story, so the boardroom is a classroom for me. But instead of being the student, my team and I are often the ones teaching, promoting, and helping our customers solve problems. In that sense, the boardroom and the classroom are the same thing.

Jennifer: They are. You learn and teach in both. Next: a piece of tech changing the game right now.

Yaz: There is a company I am fascinated by. It is not in our space, but I think it matters in every space. It is Palantir. Palantir works in artificial intelligence, and it has a product called Foundry. When a company installs Foundry in its tech setup, it looks at almost everything the company does. It looks for chances for efficiency and automation, gives insight based on what it finds, and then recommends better actions. It can also help carry out those actions. That is exciting to me because it is close to what we try to do at Joveo for our clients, but in talent acquisition. We come in, use our systems and platform to find what can be improved, what can be automated, and what can give a better recruiter experience and a better candidate experience. We let the data guide the right insight and the right next steps, and then we take those steps with the customer. Palantir and Foundry are a big source of inspiration because what they do for enterprise and government is what we want to do for talent acquisition.

Jennifer: I had not heard of them until you said it, so I will check them out.

Yaz: Governments around the world, and some of the biggest companies in the world, use Palantir. Some of what they are doing is incredible.

Jennifer: Favorite global city to live or work?

Yaz: That is a rhetorical question because it is New York City.

Jennifer: One word to describe the future of work.

Yaz: Creativity. I think the future of work will be about creativity. Some people say that if humans do not have to do anything anymore, will we end up like in the movie Wall E? In that movie, everyone is very obese and sits in the sun all day on a cruise ship in space because everything is done for them. I do not think that is the future of work. I think we will move into jobs that need high levels of creativity and human skill. So far, no one says AI will run those parts. AI copies and repeats. Even when you ask it to make art, music, or a poem, it still leans on what came before. Original work is still a human strength. That is why the future of work is about creativity.

Jennifer: I love that word, and you are right. Thank you, Yaz, for your time.

Yaz: Thank you, Jennifer. I appreciate it.