By TRACY STAPP HEROLD for Entrepreneur: When asked where his journey to multi-unit, multi-brand mogul began, Aziz Hashim points back to a humble beginning: mopping floors and washing dishes at his uncle’s Los Angeles Burger King franchise at the age of 14. Over the next eight years, he worked in various Burger Kings, advancing to cashier, then to manager. But he always saw fast food as a means to an end, a way to pay for his college education. When he graduated with a degree in electrical engineering from the University of California, Irvine, he expected to leave the restaurant world behind for good.
Instead, Hashim now says, “I realized within a few short weeks of being employed as an electrical engineer that it wasn’t for me. I much preferred the restaurant environment. Within 90 days of getting that job, I tendered my resignation and decided I was going to try to find my way in the restaurant business.”
He moved to Atlanta and opened his first franchise, a KFC, in 1996. He followed that with a Subway next door, and within three years he’d grown his empire to 10 units. Today, as president and CEO of NRD Holdings, Hashim owns 35 franchises in Georgia, California and Toronto and employs about 700 people.
More A Franchise Leader on the Benefits and Challenges of Multi-Unit Ownership.
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