He Fled a Civil War at Age 8. Now He's Driving One of the Fastest-Growing Companies in America

By: Christine Lagorio-Chafkin

Armir Harris is on a bus. He's 9 years old, traveling with his mother and 12-year-old sister from the south Texas border to Boston. The trip, he's been told, will take nearly three days--but his motion sickness makes him miserable, so he tries to sleep as much as possible, clutching the three action figures he's been carrying with him for the past two years, through four countries. He tries not to worry that his mother has less than $3,000 to last them for ... how long? Long enough for him to learn English? Long enough for them to find a home? Long enough for her to find a job? He tries to shove the questions down, deep enough that he can sleep.

When he thinks back to the home his family fled in Vlorë, Albania, where the foothills of the Ceraunian Mountains meet the Adriatic Sea, Armir Harris doesn't seem particularly wistful. Yes, it was beautiful. Yes, there were beaches. Yes, they went every weekend. But when he was 7, a brutal civil war broke out. Gunshots outside of his window meant his mother kept his sister and him inside--all day, all night--for months. Then, one night, at 3 a.m., his mother hailed a cab to the airport, and they left, with what they could carry. He tells the story quickly. He's eager to move on.

The fact is, fleeing the violence began a nearly four-year stretch of Harris's life without formal education. A stretch that, at times, meant his only bed was a makeshift one, outdoors, or in an Amtrak station. Or on a bus. Twenty years later, he doesn't love to talk about it. Friends can know him for years without his telling them he's a refugee, or that much of his childhood was spent homeless, or helping his mom at any job she could get--including cleaning a restaurant at 2 a.m.

Another thing Harris, today, at 34, gets uncomfortable dwelling on? His wins. And they have been many, bright contrasts from the poverty and uncertainty of his childhood. For one: In June, he was named EY's Entrepreneur of the Year for the Gulf South region. To celebrate, his team insisted on taking him out to dinner and drinks. Harris--and this is classic behavior for him, friends say--insisted late at night, after the ceremony, that he needed to get back to work. Take another huge success: Harris's last company, Shofur, which made the Inc. 5000 in 2017, and was named the 21st-fastest-growing company in America. But as everyone around him was basking in the success and banking on its continuation, Harris saw only holes in the very system he'd built. He poked at them until he dismantled it, and a new company emerged a year later.

Now there's the fact that his new company, Atlanta-based CharterUP , is one of the fastest-growing companies in America--to be precise, the second-fastest. Which he's proud of, sure. But pausing to celebrate the highs, or dwelling on the lows, is, to him, the antithesis of the now. Read More...

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