Ibrahim Ahmad joined Viking Penguin as executive editor in January 2021. As editorial director at Akashic Books, where he worked for two decades, Ahmad published a list that included extraordinary writers from around the world, including Maaza Mengiste, Chris Abani, Kwame Dawes, Tayari Jones, Marlon James, Amiri Baraka, Rivers Solomon, China Miéville, Jessica Hagedorn, Randall Robinson, Melvin Van Peebles, Bernardine Evaristo, Nelson George, Bernice L. McFadden, Adrian McKinty, Dennis Lehane, George Pelecanos, Patricia Smith, Etgar Keret, Joyce Carol Oates, Ben Okri, Edwidge Danticat, and #1 international best-seller Adam Mansbach.

At Viking Penguin, he continues to acquire an eclectic range of literary fiction and crime fiction, with a particular focus on incendiary, urgent voices that subvert and expand the existing literature, and nonfiction in categories that include current affairs, politics, and pop culture. He leads frequent writing workshops, teaches publishing courses at Wilkes University, and is the co-chair of the Brooklyn Book Festival’s Fiction Committee. In 2015 he was named one of four finalists for the inaugural Star Watch prize by Publishers Weekly, awarded to “young industry professionals who have distinguished themselves as future leaders of the industry.”