Английская Википедия:Ajaz Khowaj Quoram Ahmed
Шаблон:Short description Шаблон:Use dmy dates Шаблон:Infobox person
Ajaz Khowaj Quoram Ahmed, Шаблон:Post-nominals (born 1973) is a British entrepreneur. He is best known as the founder and CEO of London-based new media company AKQA.
Early life
Ahmed was born in Taplow, Buckinghamshire[1] in 1973[2] to parents from Punjab, India.[2] 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.[3][2]
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.[2] From 1989 to 1991, Ahmed served in the marketing department and eventually as a programmer.[4] He used the company's dBASE software to author an improved financial system for purchase orders.[2]
Career
In addition to working for Ashton-Tate as a teen, Ahmed worked for video game developer Ocean Software.[2] He left school in 1992, and for the next year, he was a marketing and public relations employee for Apple UK.[5][4] He turned down a copywriting position at BBDO and a brand management position at Unilever[4] to begin a business studies degree at the University of Bath.[2]
In 1994, Ahmed decided to leave university and launch a multimedia agency.[4] 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.[4] He first undertook a "fact-finding" trip to the U.S. to find out how companies were using the Internet.[4] Following this, at the age of 21, he founded AKQA, named after his initials.[2][6]
Ahmed led the company as its CEO and public face,[2] and by 1999, it was ranked as the largest independent new media agency in the UK.[7] 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.[8][9] WPP acquired a majority stake in the agency in 2012, with the deal valuing AKQA at $540 million.[2] AKQA became an autonomous subsidiary of WPP.[9] In November 2020, WPP announced that Grey Group would merge with AKQA to form AKQA Group.[10]
Ahmed was appointed Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2018 Birthday Honours for services to Media.[11][12] Later that same year, he was awarded an honorary degree as Doctor of Business Administration from the University of Bath.[13]
Ahmed has authored three books, as of 2021: Velocity (2012),[14] Limitless (2015),[3] and Defeat (2019).[15] Velocity was co-authored by Nike's former vice president of digital sport Stefan Olander, and discusses how companies should embrace the digital world.[14] The book was a UK bestseller in non-fiction.[16]
Ahmed serves on the board of trustees for non-profit organizations including the Elton John AIDS Foundation,[17] Virgin Unite,[18] and The Royal Foundation's Mental Health Innovations.[19]
Bibliography
See also
References
External links
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ 2,0 2,1 2,2 2,3 2,4 2,5 2,6 2,7 2,8 2,9 Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ 3,0 3,1 Шаблон:Cite book
- ↑ 4,0 4,1 4,2 4,3 4,4 4,5 Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ 9,0 9,1 Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite journal
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ 14,0 14,1 Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite book
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite news
- ↑ Ошибка цитирования Неверный тег
<ref>; для сносокEltonне указан текст - ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
- ↑ Шаблон:Cite web
