Imran Amed

Imran Amed, a Canadian-British fashion media entrepreneur and the founder, CEO, and editor-in-chief of The Business of Fashion (BoF), brings a unique understanding of the creative and commercial sides of fashion. Originating from his sofa in 2007 as a passion project, BoF has grown into a pre-eminent platform for opening, informing, and connecting the global fashion community, employing 100 people in offices in London, New York, and Shanghai.

BoF sparked a new kind of fashion dialogue, exploring the key drivers of an industry undergoing unprecedented change. The fashion industry was emerging as a force in popular culture, and there was much to analyze, dissect, and explore. In 2013, after financing BoF independently, Amed raised a seed funding round, followed by a Series A round of funding in 2015 from a group of investors including Index Ventures, LVMH, Carmen Busquets, and Felix Capital, who together hold a minority stake in the business.

Amed's contribution to the fashion industry has been widely recognized. He received the Media Award in Honor of Eugenia Sheppard at the 2016 Council of Fashion Designers of America Awards and was appointed as a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to fashion. In 2018, he received an Honorary Doctorate from Central Saint Martins at the University of the Arts London. Furthermore, in 2011, he launched a bag design collaboration with British leather goods designer Bill Amberg.

Aside from BoF, Amed is an Associate Lecturer at Central St Martin’s College of Art & Design and has also sat on international fashion juries at The Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Belgium, the Festival d’Hyères in France, and Who Is On Next in Italy.

Amed has been named in Fast Company’s annual list of the Most Creative People in Business, British GQ’s list of the 100 Most Influential Men in Britain, Indian GQ’s list of the 50 Most Influential Global Indians, British Vogue’s list of 25 New Fashion Faces to Watch, and Wired UK’s list of the 100 most influential figures in Britain’s digital economy. In 2014, Imran was the youngest-ever recipient of the Desautels Management Achievement Award at McGill University. In 2015, he was named Honorary Professor of Fashion Business at the Glasgow Caledonian University.

Before his entrepreneurial journey in the fashion industry, Amed was a management consultant at McKinsey & Co. Born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, and of Indian descent, he attended McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, and later completed an MBA at Harvard Business School. He holds British and Canadian citizenship.