| Ajaz Khowaj Quoram Ahmed | |
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| Birth Place: | Taplow, Buckinghamshire, UK[1] |
| Nationality: | British |
| Occupation: | CEO |
| Years Active: | 1994–present |
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| Boards: | AKQA (1994–2024)[2] Elton John AIDS Foundation[3] Virgin Unite[4] Mental Health Innovations[5] Prism The Gift Fund[6] |
| Mother: | Sughran Ahmed[7] |
| Father: | Khowaj Ahmed |
Ajaz Khowaj Quoram Ahmed, (born 1973) is a British entrepreneur. He is best known as the founder and CEO of London-based new media company AKQA.
Ahmed was born in Taplow, Buckinghamshire[8] in 1973[9] to parents from Punjab, India.[9] 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.[9]
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.[9] From 1989 to 1991, Ahmed served in the marketing department and eventually as a programmer.[10] He used the company's dBASE software to author an improved financial system for purchase orders.[9]
In addition to working for Ashton-Tate as a teen, Ahmed worked for video game developer Ocean Software.[9] He left school in 1992, and for the next year, he was a marketing and public relations employee for Apple UK.[11] [10] He turned down a copywriting position at BBDO and a brand management position at Unilever[10] to begin a business studies degree at the University of Bath.[9]
In 1994, Ahmed decided to leave university and launch a multimedia agency.[10] 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.[10] He first undertook a "fact-finding" trip to the U.S. to find out how companies were using the Internet.[10] Following this, at the age of 21, he founded AKQA, named after his initials.[9] [12]
Ahmed led the company as its CEO and public face,[9] and by 1999, it was ranked as the largest independent new media agency in the UK.[13] 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.[14] [15] WPP acquired a majority stake in the agency in 2012, with the deal valuing AKQA at $540 million.[9] AKQA became an autonomous subsidiary of WPP.[15] In November 2020, WPP announced that Grey Group would merge with AKQA to form AKQA Group.[16]
Ahmed was appointed Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2018 Birthday Honours for services to Media.[17] [18] Later that same year, he was awarded an honorary degree as Doctor of Business Administration from the University of Bath.[19]
Ahmed has authored three books, as of 2021: Velocity (2012),[20] Limitless (2015),[21] and Defeat (2019).[22] Velocity was co-authored by Nike's former vice president of digital sport Stefan Olander, and discusses how companies should embrace the digital world.[20] The book was a UK bestseller in non-fiction.[23] Ahmed has stepped down as CEO at AKQAAhmed serves on the board of trustees for non-profit organizations including the Elton John AIDS Foundation, Virgin Unite,[24] and The Royal Foundation's Mental Health Innovations.[25]