Ajaz Khowaj Quoram Ahmed[1]
1973 (age 50–51)
British[2]
CEO
1994–present
AKQA (1994–present)
Elton John AIDS Foundation[3]
Virgin Unite[4]
Mental Health Innovations[5]
Prism The Gift Fund[6]
Early life[edit]
Ahmed was born in Taplow, Buckinghamshire[2] in 1973[8] to parents from Punjab, India.[8] He grew up in Maidenhead, where his father, Khowaj Ahmed, worked at a Beechams factory, and his mother, Sughran Ahmed, worked at a hospital launderette.[7][8]
While in school, Ahmed was a paperboy and delivered newspapers to the UK headquarters of what was then the world's third-largest software company, Ashton-Tate. He wrote to the company requesting a job, and at 15, received an offer to work there during school holidays.[8] From 1989 to 1991, Ahmed served in the marketing department and eventually as a programmer.[9] He used the company's dBASE software to author an improved financial system for purchase orders.[8]
Career[edit]
In addition to working for Ashton-Tate as a teen, Ahmed worked for video game developer Ocean Software.[8] He left school in 1992, and for the next year, he was a marketing and public relations employee for Apple UK.[10][9] He turned down a copywriting position at BBDO and a brand management position at Unilever[9] to begin a business studies degree at the University of Bath.[8]
In 1994, Ahmed decided to leave university and launch a multimedia agency.[9] There was a high level of interest in the World Wide Web at the time, and he felt that it was crucial to start a company right away.[9] He first undertook a "fact-finding" trip to the U.S. to find out how companies were using the Internet.[9] Following this, at the age of 21, he founded AKQA, named after his initials.[8][11]
Ahmed led the company as its CEO and public face,[8] and by 1999, it was ranked as the largest independent new media agency in the UK.[12] The company received an investment of $71 million from Accenture in 2001, and merged with three agencies in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Singapore, establishing itself as an international agency.[13][14] WPP acquired a majority stake in the agency in 2012, with the deal valuing AKQA at $540 million.[8] AKQA became an autonomous subsidiary of WPP.[14] In November 2020, WPP announced that Grey Group would merge with AKQA to form AKQA Group.[15]
Ahmed was appointed Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2018 Birthday Honours for services to Media.[16][17] Later that same year, he was awarded an honorary degree as Doctor of Business Administration from the University of Bath.[18]
Ahmed has authored three books, as of 2021: Velocity (2012),[19] Limitless (2015),[7] and Defeat (2019).[20] Velocity was co-authored by Nike's former vice president of digital sport Stefan Olander, and discusses how companies should embrace the digital world.[19] The book was a UK bestseller in non-fiction.[21]
Ahmed serves on the board of trustees for non-profit organizations including the Elton John AIDS Foundation,[3] Virgin Unite,[4] and The Royal Foundation's Mental Health Innovations.[5]