Siraj Virani

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Siraj Virani

Dunkin’ Donuts franchisee
Chicago

Siraj Virani traveled thousands of miles to get where he is today. When the Indo-Pakistani war broke out in 1971, he and his father stayed behind in Bengal (now Bangladesh) while his mother and four siblings went to Pakistan.

A few months later, he decided to join them. He journeyed by boat, by camel and by foot—sometimes in disguise—across a war zone. He arrived in Karachi five months later. “That is the experience that made me strong,” Virani says. “I had to make many on-the-spot decisions. It made me who I am now.”

While working as a typist and bookkeeper in Karachi, Virani won a scholarship to the United States, where he studied to be an accountant while waiting tables. After getting an associate’s degree from the Central YMCA College in Chicago, he studied accounting and finance at Roosevelt University. When he was laid off from a pharmaceutical company, Virani began to look into franchising opportunities. He wanted to own his own my own business.

Virani discovered his path to the American Dream through the Dunkin’ Donuts franchise system. As a franchisee, he didn’t have to start from scratch, which helped him grow more quickly than he might have on his own.

Today, the father of three owns 13 Dunkin’ Donut restaurants and supplies baked goods for 18 other Dunkin’ Donut stores in the Chicago area. One of his daughters does the finances for 11 of Virani’s stores, and his son-in-law-to-be is a partner in four stores.