Ajaz Khowaj Quoram Ahmed, MBE (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^[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]

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]

• Ahmed, Ajaz (5 May 2012). Velocity : The Seven New Laws for a World Gone Digital. London: Random House UK. ISBN 9781448116898.
• Ahmed, Ajaz (1 October 2015). Limitless: Leadership that Endures. London: Random House UK. ISBN 978-0091947569.
• Ahmed, Ajaz; Watson, Christian (1 January 2019). Defeat. Ajaz Ahmed & Christian Watson.

• AKQA