Don’t Work for Jerks: Lessons & Career Advice from Abdul Rastagar

Some people build successful careers by focusing on what’s next for themselves. Others make a point of bringing people along with them.

Abdul Rastagar has spent years doing both. As Co-Founder of Sirona Marketing, Abdul has built a career spanning life sciences, healthcare, technology, and marketing. But within the healthcare marketing community, he’s also become known for something that doesn’t necessarily show up on a resume: his willingness to share what he knows, make connections, mentor others, and help people succeed.

It’s that commitment to the community that earned Abdul the 2026 Swaay.Health Distinguished Service Award.

What makes his approach particularly interesting is that it didn’t begin with a grand plan to become a mentor. It started with a simple question: Where could he give his time and knowledge and actually see the impact?

For Abdul, the answer became the marketing community.

Over the years, that decision has led him to create resources for job seekers, share his network, mentor fellow marketers, and directly help dozens of people land new roles.

I sat down with Abdul to talk about giving back, the career lessons he’s learned along the way, why trust is becoming increasingly important in an AI-driven world, and the advice he believes the next generation of healthcare marketers needs to hear.

In This Conversation:

Why giving back became such an important part of Abdul’s career.

Don’t work for jerks: The career mantra he wishes he had learned sooner.

Why trust may be one of healthcare marketing’s biggest challenges in the age of AI.

How marketers can make networking more intentional and actually useful.