London, UK – 9 June 2026 – Jurga Zilinskiene MBE has launched the New Collar Workers Club, a new initiative created to help young people build confidence, purpose and community as AI transforms the world of work at an unprecedented speed.
The Club was announced at a warm and thought-provoking inaugural evening hosted by Jurga, featuring a fireside conversation with Ruby Qu, a young professional whose career bridges AI, culture, business and music.
The event began with a reception, followed by an intimate discussion, audience questions, reflections from guests and live music from four young professionals performing as a string quartet.
At its heart, the New Collar Workers Club is Jurga’s response to a question facing millions of young people: how do you prepare for a future when the old certainties of career paths, professions and jobs for life are being rewritten by AI?
Participants at the inaugural session of the New Collar Workers Club, hosted at the the historic City University Club, in the City of London
A club for the age beyond blue collar and white collar
The name New Collar Workers Club captures a new reality. The future will not be defined simply by blue collar or white-collar work, but by people who can combine human judgement, creativity, technical confidence, emotional intelligence, accountability and lifelong learning.
Agentic AI is forecast to automate tasks once thought to be safely reserved for professionals. For young people entering the workforce, that creates opportunity but also anxiety. Many are being asked to imagine futures that do not yet exist, using career advice designed for a world that has already changed.
Jurga believes that the answer is not to lecture the next generation from a stage about how success used to work. Instead, she wants to turn the conversation around. That means putting young professionals in the spotlight, listening to what they are experiencing, learning how they are preparing for the age of AI, and most of all taking action to help them succeed.
“The future belongs to young people,” Jurga told guests.
“Those of us who benefited from the pre-AI world have a duty to help the next generation flourish. But that starts by listening.”
Curiosity, creativity and courage
The evening explored the qualities Jurga believes will define human success in the years ahead: curiosity, creativity and courage. These are essential capabilities for a world where technology can generate answers instantly, yet still depends on people to ask better questions, make ethical choices and create meaning.
For Jurga, the Club is about community, confidence and shared responsibility. It invites young people to speak honestly about their hopes, fears, ambitions and use of AI and asks leaders to listen with humility. It also recognises that people are shaped by far more than their job titles.
The theme for the evening evolved around childhood, personal passions, music, art, sport, culture and quiet sources of courage that helps children and young people to grow into resilient, imaginative, adults ready to embrace the AI age.
This human dimension is what has powered Jurga’s vision for Guildhawk for the past 25 years, and preparedness for the next 25 years. As the AI revolution accelerates productivity, the greatest progress will come when technology is matched with human creativity and purpose.
That is why the Club places equal value on professional skills and humanity. It asks what makes a person brave, imaginative and useful to others; what they loved before anyone told them what career to choose; and how those early sparks can become sources of resilience as the world changes at an astonishing speed.
Ruby Qu: a story of embracing uncertainty, creativity and self-direction
Ruby’s story brought the Club’s purpose vividly to life. She first met Jurga through music while studying at LSE. What began as a conversation about Chinese jazz of the 1920s grew into a five-hour exchange about music, AI, humanities and life, the kind of conversation that reveals how powerful human connection can be.
Ruby reflected on her journey from undergraduate study to work with AI and technology at Guildhawk and GAI Labs. She spoke candidly about uncertainty being inevitable for young generations, as well as how to embrace it fully- by accepting that not knowing exactly what comes next is not failure, but part of growth.
“Eventually, you have to make a decision and move forward, even without certainty,”
Ruby shared. It was a simple message, but one that captured the spirit of the evening: courage is not the absence of doubt, but the willingness to keep learning and moving.
AI as a challenge and an invitation
The conversation did not ignore the anxieties surrounding AI. Ruby described her own relationship with the technology as complex: full of possibility, but also of uncertainty. She acknowledged fears about job displacement and changing markets, while also recognising that disruption has always been part of human progress.
The New Collar Workers Club aims to create a safe and energising space for that complexity. It does not pretend that AI will leave work unchanged. Instead, it encourages young people to understand AI, use it critically, challenge its outputs, and remain in control of the problems they choose to solve.
Ruby offered practical insight into how she uses AI to test ideas, role-play objections and sharpen her thinking.
“Be critical,” was one of Ruby’s practical takeaways, “treat AI as a tool in your hands, not as an authority over your choices.”
She also remarked that the age of AI is ultimately not an AI problem, but a human one. Ruby urged young people to see themselves as being in the driver’s seat: choosing which problems matter, deciding where technology should be applied, and taking responsibility for the outcomes. AI can generate options, but people must still provide purpose, accountability and judgement.
The role of music, culture and the soul
The inaugural meeting included live performance from four young professionals in a string quartet, reminding everyone that creativity is not a luxury in the age of AI, but a source of strength.
Ruby’s own musical life added another layer to the conversation. She composed music and wrote lyrics, and for a time she imagined becoming a musician. She later studied social policy, considered academia, and eventually chose a path that brought together London, AI, culture, translation and people.
Today, alongside her professional work, she writes lyrics for game soundtracksshe writes lyrics for game soundtracks that have reached audiences of millions. Her story showed how the passions that shape us early in life can continue to anchor and inspire us in unexpected ways.
Ruby described those creative passions as a steady source of energy. Music, lyrics and creative work were not distractions from her career; they were part of what helped her stay balanced, curious and alive to possibility.
New leaders for the new AI age
The New Collar Workers Club also sends an important message to today’s leaders. Jurga believes that those who built their careers before AI reshaped the landscape have a responsibility to support the next generation- not by presenting what were there before, but by helping young people build the courage and confidence, altogether for a safer future.
Rather than asking young people simply to adapt to AI, the Club asks a more ambitious question: how can we help them flourish?
A hopeful beginning
The inaugural meeting of the New Collar Workers Club was authentic, joyful and comforting. It created space for the questions that matter:
- What are we doing to remain relevant?
- What skills are we developing?
- How do we use AI without losing ourselves?
- What gives us courage? What kind of future do we want to build?
Jurga closed the evening with a message that captured the purpose of the Club: curiosity and creativity are not just career skills; they are human strengths. They help people adapt, connect, imagine and lead. In a world being transformed by AI, they may be the most important strengths of all.
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