Managing offices on three continents and five time zones means communication is no easy task. To make life simpler, most internal processes are uniform. There’s a company intranet and newsletter, AKQA Weekly, to boost internal communications. Facebook is used on an informal basis and AKQA was one of the first businesses allowed in, before it was opened up to everyone.

Long-standing employees are encouraged to travel, and they take advantage of this. It is made easier by the fact that AKQA’s staff are fairly young and going overseas is therefore seen as a bonus by many. “I worked at AKQA in San Francisco for a while and I also want to help set up AKQA in Sydney,” says one. “I don’t think there will be any shortage of volunteers who want to help with that!”

Ahmed and his chief executive, Tom Bedecarré, travel regularly between offices, and other members of senior staff have also worked in different offices on a long-term basis. The managing director of the New York office started in London and others have done so in turn. As Ahmed says, it is all about “carrying the DNA of the agency across boundaries and time zones.”

NEW DESTINATIONS

Global businesses seldom get there through organic growth and in 2001 AKQA merged with the fast growing US advertising company Citron Haligman Bedecarré (CHB). CHB’s Tom Bedecarré became AKQA’s chief executive. However, the dot com crash followed shortly after and instead of expanding AKQA actually downsized.

Neverthless, Ahmed still describes it as “one of the best things we ever did”, because the new offices meant closer connections with clients and the chance to recruit on a global basis. There was also a cultural fit and shared values which always help M&A deals. “The CHB team loved our story and our founding values of innovation, service, quality and thought.”

More recently, private equity firm General Atlantic bought into the company. But while some entrepreneurs fear outside involvment management has actually improved.

“There's a team of people who are removed from the day-to-day operations of the business, and can look at its performance in an objective way,” he says. “It's much healthier for the business to get different points of view than a situation where decision-making is unilateral.”

Ahmed describes how the AKQA board has to strike a balance between independence and responsibilty and says it is accountable to clients, employees and shareholders.  “They are the three main stakeholders at the moment and if we focus on the work as our main priority, we are looking after the interests of all three in one go.”

JUST THE BEGINNING

With just 10 years behind it, AKQA is still a fairly youthful company and its founder has time on his side. Ahmed has no other business interests and says he wants to just keep on going and pushing boundaries.

With VC investment already there, an IPO is not deemed to be off-limits. However, AKQA’s future is tied to the internet and how that feral beast evolves.“The internet has made huge progress, but I think it is hardly close to fulfilling anything like its full potential,” he says. Which is also possibly an apt description of his business.