Ziad Ahmed has a pretty impressive resume. He is the CEO of a company he co-founded, a Yale man, has spoken at multiple TED events, and has been published by the likes of the Huffington Post and Teen Vogue. Ziad is also only 19 years old. Not yet even an upperclassman, this young entrepreneur has shaped the world he lives in through various avenues of activism and business.
His work began in 2013 when he founded his nonprofit, Redefy. The group’s aim is to create a space for teens to share opinions and promote positive perspectives in a world that regularly makes it difficult to do so. As a young person, Ziad did not let his age stop him from acting on a problem he saw in the world and within just a few years, Redefy was thriving. Ziad was even invited to the White House by President Obama, not once, but three different times to congratulate him on his work.
During a summer business program at Cornell in 2015, Ziad and his friend, Nick Jain, met Melinda Gu. The three mused over their shared goals of making a difference as young people in the entrepreneurship world. After contemplating ideas, they came up with JUV. JUV is a consulting firm that works to connect companies and teen audiences by using teens themselves to bridge the “cultural” gap. Time and time again, large brands attempt to market a product or idea specifically for young people but have a difficult time understanding or keeping up with the trends that attract them. JUV connects this divide. Ziad and his team are a staff of entirely teens and young adults, ranging in age from 14 to 22, so every consultation they provide is authentic and realistic to how teens actually speak and respond to things.“Don't talk about teenagers, talk to teenagers,” says Ahmed about marketing schemes. By commodifying their opinion, Ziad and his team have invented a new way to share young people's ideas in professional settings.
Within JUV, Ziad and his collaborators also created The Vine, a crowdsourced focus group that JUV can pull opinions from. This much larger group, made up of any 14 to 22 year old that wants to apply, allows the firm to understand Generation Z at large and avoid having biased opinions skewed to what their small staff likes or believes. This inventive way to expand their “staff” has allowed JUV to have more nuanced and full perspective over its field and therefore represent it better.
Ziad's work is undoubtedly creative, both because of its originality and relevance. The most obvious reason I thought of him for this blogpost is because his company is unique and unlike anything else that I know of. The idea- to allow teens to speak for themselves directly to brands- is so simple but so effective, making it easy to implement and be successful. I believe Ziad and his team are able to do this through collaboration and shared-intrinsic motivation. As young people, they are not required to have started a business at this point in their life. On the contrary, people are universally sceptical of their abilities to do their job effectively and professionally because of their age. Instead of using outside motivation, the team wants to grow and nurture JUV because they want to see a firm like it in the field and believe in each other's ability to make it happen. Like Amabile points out, this inner yearning to make and maintain the company is what makes their endeavor so creative and successful.
What's one thing Ziad has yet to conquer? Fashion, according to his family in a humorous tweet posted earlier this year. To stay up to date with this trailblazing young man, i‘d recommend giving him a follow (@ziadtheactivist). Not only does he say and share interesting things about his company, he’s also a pretty entertaining guy.
https://medium.com/@justinemoore_85088/running-a-gen-z-consulting-firm-with-nick-jain-and-jacob-chang-juv-consulting-931e01d8384c
I think it's amazing that Ziad Ahmed created a space for teens to speak for themselves and their share their perspectives! I also think it is really beneficial that he and his collaborators expanded on their work to help advise companies that are looking to effectively work with teens. They are clearly good at what they do as some of their clients include AXE and Viacom!
ReplyDeleteI think it’s awesome how such a young person was able to actualize and implement a goal of his. It is rare to see such drive and effectiveness, but always refreshing and inspiring when it does happen. It is interesting that the idea behind his whole company is rather obvious and yet it did not really occur to anyone except this teenager. Makes you wonder what else is an obvious thing that we can make a business out of. I really enjoyed this article!
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