Welcome! I’m Simi Shah and I dive deep into the journeys of South Asian trailblazers here and on our podcast on Apple and Spotify. Find us on Instagram/LinkedIn for more content + upcoming events.
Hot off the Pod Ziad Ahmed, Co-founder/CEO of JUV Consulting
At 23-years-old, Ziad Ahmed is our youngest trailblazer to date. In this episode, I catch up with the CEO/Co-Founder of JUV Consulting, a purpose-driven Generation Z consultancy that works with clients (small businesses, non-profits, and major corporations) to help them authentically reach young people. To date, the company has worked with 20+ Fortune 500 companies, has been profiled by the New York Times, and has established full-time offices around the U.S.
A recent graduate of Yale, Ziad began JUV consulting in 2016, while still in high school. He previously founded a non-profit, Redefy, committed to furthering equality. Ziad has done significant work in progressive politics, having worked for the US Department of State, Hillary Clinton's 2016 Campaign, Martin O'Malley's 2016 Campaign, and Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman. He is also an active speaker as well as leader and advisor for Women's March Youth Empower, Yara Shahidi's EighteenX18, and various other campaigns and movements. Episode excerpts below:
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Simi: You started JUV Consulting in 2016, while you were still in high school. Today, you've worked with the likes of Unilever, VF Corp, and a dozen other Fortune 500 companies. When you first started, what was your pitch? How did you get businesses to take you seriously?
Ziad: I never aspired to be in marketing or business. I never really even aspired to be an entrepreneur. I had this idea of something I thought should exist in the world and I got together some friends. I thought this would be a small side project. And then I became CEO, but never in my wildest dreams did I expect to be doing this full time. Our original pitch was just the basic truth of my story: having been in rooms, with high level decision makers, with politicians, with companies, and realizing that the questions they were asking about Gen Z were just wild and so out of touch with reality — in the way that we were communicating with each other and the way we were thinking about the world. And I use ‘we’ in a really broad sense, because, obviously, Gen Z is not a monolith. There are a myriad of ways that people live and think and exist, but none of them were being acknowledged or represented in these rooms. So the pitch was: right now you're talking about young people, but you’re not talking to us. Let's fix that.
I was at a meeting with a big company just the other day, and we referenced Venmo and Cash App, and they were like, ‘What are those?’ And those aren’t things I put in a deck to be like, ‘Gotcha! You don't know this.’ There's just a lot of things that we take for granted and that's really why I started this company. I assumed that the people in power, the people who are decision makers, knew a little bit about us. And then I realized no, maybe not. That was the pitch: us showcasing to them how much they didn't know. And then having them trust us as an authority to help — through the voices of young people — educate them on the myriad of lived experiences of our generation such that they can meaningfully empower us forward. Because it’s really hard to come up with an idea that empowers young people if you have no idea where we're lacking agency or lacking community right now.
Simi: In my experience, there are a lot of companies that have never been vocal on politically-charged issues, but now recognize this is an imperative, especially if they want to build a relationship with Gen Z. Still, I imagine some senior leaders struggle with this because they've operated within a certain status quo for decades. When you see a client experiencing that dissonance, how do you get them to buy in?
Ziad: The conversation has to always start with, ‘What’s your why?’ I know that sounds trite, cliche, and maybe a little millennial. But it's really important that an organization knows their why and not just in a deck somewhere. Every person who works at a company should know what their company's why is in one sentence. For us — we exist to empower Gen Z. That's who we are. That's what we do. Everyone should know because how is your consumer going to know what it says about them to post that product, to be part of your community, if you internally don’t know what it says about you to work there? Once you know your why, it gives you a roadmap to what you should be commenting on. A lot of companies get into trouble when they think, ‘Now we're going to comment on every single political issue.’ That's overwhelming. It isn't to say that all things don't matter. But no company is built on every issue. There are, unfortunately, infinite issues at present. And I don't think it comes across well when a company only comments on something when it's trending, when it's so big that you can't ignore it, right? Things feel authentic and true when they are authentic and true. In marketing, we talk a lot about authenticity. If something isn't true, it's gonna feel forced, because it is forced, right?
A client will come to me and say, ‘We stand for fun. That's our why.’ Okay, blasé, but I'll take it. But what a lot of companies have done wrong is they've looked at that only in the affirmative, not the negative. They're like, ‘How do we make happy kids happier?’ as their mission. Instead of — if you stand for fun — the question has to become: who has least access to fun? How are we showing up with our messaging and with our programming to serve them? What are we doing for kids who don't have access to recreation? What are we doing for kids in refugee camps who don't have access to any form of recreation? What are we doing for kids in underfunded schools don't have who don't have access to quality recreation? Whatever it might be, those are the questions we ought to be asking. And then what do we comment about? Well, we comment on policies that impact young people's access to recreation, young people's access to mental health services, young people's access to being happy, to experiencing fun. Because that is our why. You tether your statements to your mission, you tether how you're showing up to that mission. And I think where a lot of companies have a disconnect is they don't have that mission clearly outlined.
Hear our passionate discourse on the state of entrepreneurship, JUV's value proposition, and what's next for Ziad: full episode on Apple, Spotify, or our website!