RTOHQ: The Magazine, Summer 2018

One piece of advice Id off er other up and comers is just to listen listen to your managers your staff and your customers Weve gotten so much important input from our stores that weve used to fi ne tune our operations collaboration is key M y family came to America from the UK United 28 RTOHQ The Magazine Kingdom begins Shirin Kanji My father Dilip was from Africa my mother was from India they met and married in Leicester England My father was a trained biochemist for what served as his senior thesis he created a new chemical Chemical companies off ered him a lab job but he declined he didnt envision a life for himself and his family working in an industrial factory lab He and my mother were seeking opportunity and for us America is the land of opportunity Many members of the Kanjis extended family had already come to the U S and were going into real estate and hotels Dilip decided to visit some family members who had settled in southern California and were having some success in the hotel industry he spent a few months with them learning their business and went home extremely excited by the prospect of going into the hotel business for himself in America Knowing he needed to start small Dilip chose a motel in Gainsville Florida to launch his new career It was a traditional u shaped mom and pop motel Shirin remembers Single story outdoor access with a pool in the middle and a tiny little front desk area My dad moved the family over and by family I mean his parents his two brothers and their wives in addition to my parents I was born the fi rst year they were here 1980 and all nine of us lived together in the two room apartment behind the front desk area We had to love each other a whole lot to live like that We couldnt aff ord employees so everyone pitched in to help run the motel my mom and aunts did the housekeeping and laundry my grandfather was the resident handyman and my dad and uncles dealt with operations It took the family several years to pay off that fi rst motel but once it was covered one of Shirins uncles bought a similar motel close by and followed the same family business model to success Now the Kanjis company Impact Properties was gaining momentum and they decided to expand via franchising building a brand new Days Inn Developing new construction is never easy notes Shirin As a newcomer Dad made mistakes along the way Toward the end of the build fi nances got so tight that the whole family would go to the site every night and do what we could to move construction forward cleaning assembling installing prepping for the construction team so they could spend fewer payable hours on the project From there we saw the value of franchising and its become part of our family business DNA Were very good at working hard and executing a program developed by proven models As the company continued to grow Shirins family moved to the Tampa suburb of Brandon and Shirin spent his high school years at Tampa Preparatory School I was an active kid in both academics and athletics Kanji recalls I love reading and learning new things even now which has helped me as both a student and a professional One of my notable achievements was making Tampa Preps varsity basketball team my junior and senior years They were the number one triple A team statewide at the time and since I was not exactly a giant just making the team was an accomplishment My specialty was shooting I could shoot well from anywhere on the court but opportunities to show off my 5 9 talents were few and far between Preparing for college Kanji applied to only two schools the hometown option the University of Florida and the long shot the New York University Stern School of Business Kanji who had become enamored with the glamour of New York City and especially Wall Street leapt at the chance to study at NYU and today calls the almost decade he spent in New York transformative It was a huge culture shock asserts Kanji It was the fi rst time I had ever spent any time at all outside of Florida and the City was aggressive fast paced and multicultural with people from all walks of life I had to fi gure out how to survive and thrive there it was a big time growing up process for me Kanji earned his B S in Finance Political Science in