Innovator – Ziad Ahmed

Ziad Ahmed is a 25-year-old social entrepreneur, speaker, and strategist — who is the Head of Next Gen @ UTA Marketing. He is based in NYC -- but often on the road. 

As a teenager, in 2016, Ziad founded JUV Consulting, a Gen Z company connecting clients with the zeitgeist. JUV then worked with over 30 Fortune 500 companies, was profiled by the New York Times, launched major purpose-driven media campaigns, and launched the first-ever major industry conference with only Gen Z speakers, ZCON. Because of JUV, Ziad was named to the Forbes #30Under30 list when he was 19-years-old. In 2020, Refinery29 called JUV “the largest and most popular Gen Z agency.”

In 2024, United Talent Agency acquired JUV Consulting, forming the Next Gen Practice of UTA Marketing, where Ziad is continuing to lead his team’s award-winning work at the intersection of content, community, and culture. 

Ziad also graduated from Yale in 2021, where he focused his research on social media’s impact on policy-making. He speaks often on the power of his generation, and he seeks to use his voice to push the envelope forward wherever/however possible. He has spoken everywhere from Cannes Lions to the White House to VidCon — and has been featured everywhere from CNN to VICE to the Guardian. 

As a result of Ziad’s leadership, he was selected in 2023 as an inaugural Obama USA Leader by the Obama Foundation. WWD also named Ziad one of the world’s “Most Influential ESG Leaders” in 2023. Ziad’s “why” is working towards a world where more of us have a seat at the table — where we all have the agency to build our own tables. Overwhelmingly though, he’s just another Gen Zer spending way too much time on TikTok. You can learn more about him via @ziadahmed, but he is in corporate spaces rather a lot — so he also been named a “LinkedIn Top Voice” in case that’s at all ever useful.