Ziad Ahmed is a marketing executive and founder of JUV Consulting, a youth-focused consulting firm acquired by United Talent Agency. Ahmed’s work includes Gen Z-led brand campaigns, cultural partnerships and community events such as ZCON.
Best for Gen Z co-created campaigns, cultural partnerships, and live community events through JUV/UTA team.
Consumer brands or agencies wanting authentic Gen Z campaign with co-creation and real-world moment.
Brands wanting a single sponsored personal post with fixed rate, reach guarantee, or sales target.
Check first: Confirm team-delivered process, audience demographics, and any campaign delivery results before contacting.
Ziad Ahmed is known for building JUV Consulting, a youth-focused firm he founded as a high-school student and that was acquired by United Talent Agency, and for creating ZCON, a gathering that brings Gen Z speakers and attendees of different generations together.
Ahmed makes community a practical part of the work, not just a campaign message.
Ziad Ahmed repeatedly argues that young people should help shape decisions, not merely appear in campaigns, and that brands can earn relevance by strengthening real communities.
His posts connect those ideas to co-created brand work, culturally specific partnerships and circular design.
Ahmed presents Gen Z as a source of expertise and creative direction, not just a target audience.
In his account, involving young contributors early can change the work itself.
He says JUV worked with Gen Z contributors on Coachtopia and describes bringing 15 creatives together with Coach’s global CMO to develop an &Coach campaign idea in under two days.
Ahmed argues that convenience can crowd out the relationships and shared spaces people need.
He sees gatherings and shared rituals as ways to create connection, rather than treating people only as an audience to reach.
He describes ZCON as an answer to the desire for a “village,” with Gen Z speakers, an intergenerational audience and participatory activities such as hula-hooping. In a separate post, he calls the wider problem an “intimacy recession.”
Ahmed’s examples emphasize starting with how people actually behave in a specific setting, then building an activation around that context.
The cultural connection matters more than simply attaching a brand to a prominent event.
For method’s work around Bad Bunny’s Puerto Rican residency, he describes an installation in concert bathrooms built around mirror selfies, conversation and community-making, with creators connected to the island helping tell the story.
Ahmed points to changes in supply chain, design and community as more meaningful than a broad sustainability message.
His post presents Coachtopia as an example, while directing readers to a docuseries about its circularity efforts.
He describes Coachtopia as developed with Gen Z contributors and asks whether existing systems are really the best possible. He also urges readers to follow the project’s “Road to Circularity” series.
Answers how Ziad connects brand strategy to sustainability and community co-creation, which is central to the circular-economy brief.
Ziad describes JUV Consulting’s collaboration with Coach on Coachtopia, which he calls the first circular-economy luxury brand of its kind, built in partnership with Gen Zers worldwide.
For a circular-economy or sustainability brief, this is evidence of a partner who can talk about supply chain and design in community terms rather than as a compliance story. Use it to shape a campaign that gives Gen Z participants a visible role in product and messaging.
Best single example of Ziad’s method for fast, co-created brand work with young creatives, and the clearest window into how he runs a campaign sprint.
Ziad narrates a launch event for &Coach at Cannes.
Shows a model a brand can hire: an intensive offsite with a small set of creators and the client’s decision-maker, followed by fast production and launch. It also shows brokering brand-to-brand partnerships—Coach and Spotify—as part of the campaign package.
Concrete example of a cultural insight turned into a physical activation and creator campaign, useful for judging execution detail.
Ziad describes working on behalf of method products to partner with Bad Bunny’s Puerto Rican residency.
A template for low-cost, high-relevance activation: find a specific, overlooked venue ritual, design a branded space around it, and pair with creators who have authentic ties to the audience. The co-branded camera shows how to extend the moment into shareable content.
Explains ZCON, the community event Ziad repeatedly points to as his village and as the culmination of a decade of youth-marketing work.
Ziad writes that ZCON 2025 drew 750+ attendees, with speakers including Olandria, Ella Emhoff, and Auli’i Cravalho, sponsors including Coach, Yahoo, Invisalign, and L’Oreal, and a partnership with Cosmopolitan to name the Gen Zers of the year.
A brand can sponsor or participate in ZCON to reach Gen Z creators, CMOs, and changemakers in a curated setting. The Cosmopolitan awards partnership shows how a media brand can attach its name to the community’s own recognition.
Shows the scale and trajectory Ziad’s firm reached and how he positioned youth expertise inside a major entertainment company.
Ziad announces that JUV Consulting has been acquired by United Talent Agency, forming the Next Gen Practice of UTA Marketing.
For an agency or brand, this signals that Ziad now operates within UTA’s ecosystem, which can bring entertainment talent and industry access to a campaign. It also shows a track record of building a youth-marketing firm into an acquisition.
A concise statement of Ziad’s current marketing argument, useful for seeing how he frames his point of view for a business audience.
Ziad discusses brand health with Kory Marchisotto, Joon Silverstein’s cultural anthropology, and argues that any brand not thinking of itself as a media company today is losing market share.
If the brief involves content or owned media, this is his guiding argument: brands need to behave like publishers to stay culturally relevant. It also names executives and frameworks he draws on, which can inform a pitch.
Ziad’s clearest explanation of the social shift he thinks brands should respond to, and the intellectual frame behind his community-first work.
Ziad writes that the scarcity of genuine intimacy gives it a premium and that society may be in an “intimacy recession.”
A community-first campaign brief can use this framing: design for third spaces, shared rituals, and real-world gatherings rather than just reach and convenience. It positions Ziad as a strategist who will push a brand to justify its role in people’s social lives.
Shows how Ziad ties business milestones to community and inclusion, and how he describes work on Riz Ahmed’s show BAIT.
Ziad marks ten years since founding JUV Consulting and two years since the UTA acquisition, then describes the third annual UTA Iftar for over a hundred people, including poetry from Emtithal Mahmoud, nonprofit partners, former team members, and clients experiencing Ramadan for the first time.
For a brief involving cultural inclusion or Muslim audiences, this is evidence of long-standing community relationships and event experience. The BAIT work shows a creator-partnership approach applied to a TV launch.
Ahmed describes Gen Z expertise as a way to bring young voices into decisions.
In the JUV Consulting acquisition post, Ahmed says the firm worked across product and supply-chain projects, elections, and brand campaigns. The Coachtopia post points to Gen Z contributors shaping a circular-economy brand; the &Coach post describes assembling 15 creatives to develop a campaign idea with Coach’s CMO in under two days.
Ahmed’s examples emphasize convening contributors around a real brief, then carrying the work through to products or public-facing creative.
For a brand seeking credible youth marketing, involve young contributors early in research and creative decisions, and show what their input changed. Co-creation is more substantiated here than a campaign that simply borrows Gen Z language or imagery.
Ahmed frames ZCON as an intergenerational gathering built around young speakers, shared participation, and connections among creators, executives, and other attendees.
The posts describe its hula-hooping recess and a partnership with Cosmopolitan on Gen Z awards. Ahmed also connects local gathering places and everyday acts of mutual help to a broader argument about social isolation.
The examples combine a convening, participatory programming, media partnerships, and reflection on what attendees do together.
A brand exploring youth culture could support a useful gathering or shared activity, rather than stopping at reach or impressions. The idea fits best when the brand can contribute to the community and give participants a meaningful role.
In a post about method’s work around Bad Bunny’s Puerto Rico residency, Ahmed describes a bathroom installation built around concertgoers’ mirror selfies, conversations, and social moments.
The post says creators with a connection to the island helped tell the story. Ahmed presents the partnership as an extension of the residency’s cultural setting, not a generic sponsorship placement.
The post links a specific venue behavior to an on-site experience and creator storytelling.
For a campaign tied to a cultural event, start with the audience’s actual habits and the local context; select creators for a genuine connection to that context. This example may suit experiential or creator-led work, but it does not establish that the same execution would fit another community.
Examples: Source 1
Ahmed presents Coachtopia as an example of reconsidering supply chain, design, and community, and points to a docuseries about its road to circularity.
The post treats the project as a practical demonstration of circular-economy ideas, rather than relying only on a broad sustainability message.
Ahmed points readers to a documentary series and a named collaborator to make the work easier to examine.
For a brand with a substantive circularity project, show the decisions, people, and processes behind it. Use this approach only when the brand can point to concrete work; the post is an account of the project, not independent evidence of its environmental results.
Examples: Source 1
Ahmed’s post about the Knicks, concerts, and public gatherings develops an argument that people want more intimacy and community in a life optimized for convenience.
A separate interview post lists brand health, cultural analysis, and brands acting as media companies as subjects discussed. Together, these examples show a reflective commentary format alongside discussion of marketing strategy.
Ahmed moves from recognizable cultural examples to a broader claim, then states a value-based conclusion.
This approach can help a brand develop a point of view around a cultural moment, but it calls for more than attaching a product to a trending event. The brand needs a specific, credible connection to the issue and should avoid presenting a personal interpretation as settled audience research.
Ziad Ahmed's commercial relationships run through JUV Consulting, the youth-marketing firm he founded and ran until United Talent Agency acquired it, and through UTA's Next Gen practice, where he works as Head of Next Gen.
The retained posts name client campaign work for Coach (including Coachtopia and the &Coach launch), method products pbc, Fujifilm, Vans and Left Handed Films, sponsorship of his ZCON conference by Yahoo, Invisalign, L'Oréal, RIVET and Sour Jacks, and partnerships with Spotify, Gold House and Cosmopolitan. Relationships are described from Ahmed's own account of the work; the posts do not set out contract lengths, fees or campaign dates.
Employment
Ahmed is Head of Next Gen at UTA Marketing, the practice created when UTA acquired JUV Consulting.
He describes UTA as his first employer and credits UTA leadership with backing ZCON.
Owned business
Ahmed founded JUV Consulting while a junior in high school and led it for about a decade until UTA acquired the firm.
Under him it moved beyond consulting into co-created products, electoral work, brand campaigns and the ZCON conference.
Client
Ahmed's team co-created Coachtopia, the brand's circular-economy line, and produced the &Coach global campaign and its launch event at Cannes, built with a curated group of Gen Z creatives.
Coach also sponsors ZCON, and Ahmed works directly with Coach's marketing leadership.
Disclosed partnership
Ahmed says he brokered a global partnership between Coach and Spotify, announced during Cannes week.
Client
Ahmed's team ran a Gen Z Crash Course for Vans in 2019, an early engagement he credits with opening later work at Coach.
Client
Ahmed's team built method's partnership with Bad Bunny's Puerto Rico residency, turning venue bathrooms into 'besties del baño' sensory spaces staffed with creators connected to the island.
Client
Ahmed names Fujifilm among the clients on the same Bad Bunny activation, for a co-branded QuickSnap camera.
Client
Ahmed's team supported marketing for Riz Ahmed's series BAIT, handling viral creator partnerships and premiere events.
Disclosed partnership
Ahmed's third annual UTA Iftar was hosted at The Bench in partnership with Gold House.
Disclosed partnership
Cosmopolitan partners with ZCON to name its Gen Zers of the year, a recurring tie-in Ahmed promotes across the conference cycle.
Sponsor
Yahoo sponsored ZCON 2025 and is among the brands Ahmed credits with making the conference possible.
Sponsor
Invisalign sponsored ZCON 2025, named by Ahmed among the brands backing the event.
Sponsor
L'Oréal sponsored ZCON 2025, named by Ahmed among the brands backing the event.
Sponsor
RIVET sponsored ZCON 2025, named by Ahmed among the brands backing the event.
Sponsor
Sour Jacks sponsored ZCON 2025, named by Ahmed among the brands backing the event.
Ziad Ahmed's posts are the fastest way into his thinking, and they cluster around three threads a reader can follow.
For the brand work, start with the Coachtopia and &Coach posts, which describe bringing Gen Z contributors and outside creatives into product and campaign decisions, and with the account of a method activation built around Bad Bunny's Puerto Rico residency.
Kaufman also works inside a one-person social media and marketing practice, handling organic social, paid social and influencer marketing for a spread of client categories, and writes about that work in the same first-person LinkedIn format.
Kaufman's posts are about the freelance business itself: client work for insurance, nonprofit, retail, fashion, food and professional-services brands, and the trade-offs of leaving a corporate job for self-employment. Ahmed's material is youth-culture strategy and large-scale convening, carried out within a talent agency.
Miceli treats a community as the centre of the business, and the posts follow the same reflective pattern as Ahmed's: what a gathering means, how a team resolves a miscommunication, what conviction costs a bootstrapped founder.
Miceli's community, The BOLD Builder, is a mastermind for multifaceted women entrepreneurs, and the writing stays on founder self-development and team communication. Ahmed convenes Gen Z, executives, creators and changemakers, and the community feeds brand campaign work.
Beal draws a lesson about people from the experience of buying and running a ServiceMaster franchise, in the same short reflective LinkedIn format Ahmed uses to argue a point from his own projects.
Beal's frame is explicitly Christian, moving through a convent training week, Nehemiah's wall and faith-based peer forums. Ahmed's posts argue in the language of youth culture, media and brand marketing.
The only measured audience figure in the supplied material is platform-level: the LinkedIn account listed for Ziad Ahmed showed 22,230 followers when observed on 11 October 2026.
LinkedIn does not publish audience demographics, so that number tells a buyer how many accounts follow the profile — not where those followers are, how old they are, or what they do for a living.
22,230
LinkedIn account listed for Ziad Ahmed · 2026-10-11
Ziad Ahmed's partnership work runs through JUV Consulting, the youth-marketing firm he founded and which was acquired by United Talent Agency to form UTA Marketing's Next Gen Practice.
Brands engage that team rather than booking Ahmed as an individual creator.
Expect an agency-style engagement, not a single sponsored post.
Client sponsorships have been paired with co-branded physical goods and in-venue activations: a Fujifilm QuickSnap camera carrying both the client and Bad Bunny branding, and branded bathrooms inside the Puerto Rico concert venue. Buyers choosing this format should budget for product production, venue or event access, and creator participation, not only for content.
ZCON, Ahmed's invitation-only Gen Z conference, sells sponsorships to brands including Coach, Yahoo, Invisalign, L'Oréal, RIVET and Sour Jacks, and runs a Gen Zers of the year awards program with Cosmopolitan.
The team has brokered deals between its own clients, such as the Coach and Spotify partnership announced during Cannes. Buyers who want a partner brand rather than a campaign should treat the team as a broker and expect commercial terms to be negotiated between the two brands, with the team handling the introduction and activation.
The team has assembled creator cohorts on very short notice — the &Coach offsite brought together fifteen creatives with roughly a week's warning. Buyers should be prepared to approve talent lists, fees, travel and logistics quickly, and should expect talent cost to sit alongside the team's own fee.
The team supported the launch of Riz Ahmed's series BAIT with creator partnerships, premieres and marketing. Buyers with a fixed release date should bring the team in early enough to align creator partnerships with the premiere calendar rather than after it.
Strong fit on the material reviewed.
A consumer brand or its agency wants an authentic Gen Z campaign that includes a working co-creation phase and at least one real-world moment — for example, launching a refillable or circular product line and asking young creators to help shape the positioning before assets are produced.
Engage the team, not a solo creator. This work runs through JUV Consulting, now UTA Marketing's Next Gen Practice, so a buyer should expect an agency-style engagement with its own fee alongside talent and production costs.
ZCON matters as a curated attendance event rather than a reach product; sponsor package tiers are not published and would need to be requested directly.
The account of every campaign above is Ahmed's own. It is enough to judge format and method; it does not independently verify environmental results or delivery metrics.
Weak fit on the material reviewed.
A brand wants a single sponsored post from Ziad Ahmed's personal account at a fixed per-post rate, with a guaranteed impression or reach figure, a click-through benchmark, and a sales or signup target.
Open through the UTA Next Gen team, not a booking form, and state the constraint that matters: a fixed launch date four months out. The &Coach case shows the team has run a global co-creation sprint on that timeline, so the date is a workable brief rather than a disqualifier.
Ask for a two-day co-creation sprint as the first paid milestone: a small cohort of Gen Z creators chosen for a real relationship to the product category, working live with the brand's decision-maker, with the brief that contributors help set the positioning before any assets are produced. That mirrors the described Coach working method and gives the brand a decision it can point to.
Anchor the creative in one specific behaviour rather than a general sustainability message. The method activation worked because it started from what people already do in the venue; for a refillable line, the equivalent is the real friction point in a refill routine, found in research rather than assumed.
Build the flagship moment as a shared activity, not a product display. The ZCON model — participatory programming, a defined community, a partner media brand attached to recognition — is the closest proven template, and the intimacy-recession argument in Ahmed's writing is the strategic framing to hold the brand to: the activation should leave people with a reason to be together, not just a reason to buy.
Extend into creator-led content with talent who have a genuine tie to the category, and pair it with a co-branded physical item if budget allows, following the method/Fujifilm pattern. Budget for product production and event access, not content alone.
Measure first-party: registration and attendance data from the activation, plus whatever creator output the brand can instrument. Do not promise a reach figure — no campaign-level delivery data exists in the reviewed material.
A mid-size consumer brand is launching a refillable home-care line. It wants the launch to read as a genuine Gen Z community moment rather than a green claim, has roughly four months before it needs to be live, and expects one flagship in-person activation plus creator-led content.
Audience composition for the brand's target segment. Request any follower demographic export, geographic breakdown, or first-party event registration data the team will share.
Current sponsor and engagement tiers, fees, and what a comparable sprint or activation costs. None of this is published.
Whether the brand's sustainability claims can survive close reading, since the material here describes the work rather than independently verifying its environmental outcomes.
Sophie Kaufman is the stronger choice when the job is smaller, hands-on social and influencer execution rather than a Gen Z cultural campaign.
Kaufman's own posts describe a freelance social media and marketing consultancy running organic social, paid social and influencer marketing for clients across insurance, nonprofits, retail and fashion, food and CPG, professional services and agency in-house work, with referrals driving much of the business.
The tradeoff is scope and youth-culture proof.
Amanda Miceli is a better fit when the campaign is about building a founder or membership community, especially for women entrepreneurs, rather than reaching Gen Z consumers at scale.
Miceli's posts describe BOLD Builder, a mastermind space for multifaceted women entrepreneurs to build personal and company brands, and a bootstrapped startup built from the ground up.
The tradeoff is audience and category.
Andy Beal is the better choice when the brief is values-led, faith-based leadership or employee engagement inside a service business, not a Gen Z consumer campaign.
Beal's posts describe buying a ServiceMaster franchise at 27, a training academy run by nuns, and a corporate plaque whose first objective was 'To Honor God in All We Do.' Beal's operating principle — people support what they help create — and the Convene member story point to leadership content, internal culture work and faith-based business audiences.
The tradeoff is direct relevance to Gen Z consumer marketing.
Editable Markdown templates for planning a campaign with this creator.
Across their last 8 LinkedIn posts, the median post got 274 reactions and 32 comments. Checked 2026-11-02.
