When You Cannot Fail

Orhan Veli arrived in the U.S. as a child refugee. Today, he’s the No. 1 Saladworks franchisee. His secret? Supporting his people.

- by CARL STOFFERS

When Orhan Veli’s family arrived in the United States in 1995, failure was not an option.

They were forced to flee ethnic conflict in Azerbaijan as the Soviet Union collapsed—and as refugees in the U.S., they had no choice but to rebuild their lives from scratch. Veli, who was 11 at the time, watched his engineer father become a pizza delivery driver. His mother, a trained artist, found work in a screen-printing factory. Their grit and resilience left an impression on Veli, who eventually graduated from college and began a career in finance.