Azeem Azhar

Azeem Azhar (born 1972) is a British technology entrepreneur and author. He founded the research group, Exponential View, and web technology company, PeerIndex.

Azeem Azhar
Born	1972 (age 52–53)[1]
Nationality	British
Education	Oxford University
Occupation(s)	Technology entrepreneur and author

Azhar wrote The Exponential Age: How Accelerating Technology is Transforming Business, Politics and Society, and hosts the podcast Exponential View, distributed by Harvard Business Review,^[2] and the Bloomberg Originals television show and podcast Exponentially with Azeem Azhar.^[3] He writes about the topics of AI,^[4] renewable energy,^[5] and tech more broadly.^[6]

Early life and education

Azhar was born in 1972. He studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Merton College, Oxford University.

Career

In the 1990s, Azhar became a journalist,^[1] as a technology correspondent for The Guardian, where he published stories on the internet and designed the online (Go2) platform.^[7] He later became the business correspondent for The Economist.^[8] From 1997 to 1999, he was also a strategy manager for the BBC as well as launched the BBC Online.^[9] In 2005, he became head of innovation for Reuters.^[8] In 2004, Azhar was appointed to the Ofcom Communications Consumer Panel.^[9]

Azhar founded eSouk.com in 2000 and has also held leadership positions at Albert Inc., a data analytics and marketing company in 2002, and OxMedia Ltd, a management consultancy company in 2004.^[8] He founded PeerIndex, a social media analytics company in 2009. PeerIndex won the Europas Grand Prix in 2011, and was acquired by Brandwatch in 2014.^[10][11]

In 2015, Azhar founded Exponential View, a research group that creates newsletters about AI and technological transformations.^[12][13] It was described by the Boise State Public Radio as the "leading newsletter and podcast on the impact of technology on our future economy and society".^[14]

Azhar is the host of the Bloomberg Originals television show and podcast Exponentially with Azeem Azhar.^[3]

Azhar is a member of the World Economic Forum's Expert Network^[15] and co-chair of its Global Future Council on the Future of Complex Risks.^[16] He is also an executive fellow at Harvard Business School, and a Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford.^[17]

Publications

The Exponential Age: How Accelerating Technology is Transforming Business, Politics and Society (2021).

Accolades

Azhar was named to the Vox 2023 Future Perfect 50 list. ^[1] He was named to the 2023 Charter 30 list.^[18]