Asian Trade Rug Company is a true father-daughter success story.
As a child, Hannah Massarat dismissed her father’s business. However, when Kasra Massarat came calling during the COVID-19 pandemic, the commercial interior designer responded.
“As with most children who grow up with parents who own businesses, she had zero interest in the business,” Kasra explained.
“Unexpectedly, we got super busy. So, I called her up. I said, ‘Hannah, I need help.’ Surprisingly, she agreed to move down here to Tucson from Scottsdale.”
After training with him for about three years, Hannah took over Kasra’s role as chief executive officer.
“He took me on buying trips, introduced me to all of his contacts. It’s interesting,” Hannah said.
The 47-year-old Asian Trade Rug Company on Campbell Road is a cacophony of colors, with vibrant reds and blues, deep tans and browns and grays and greens filling the building.
The floor coverings come from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and China, among other countries.
“This business is so old school and antiquated in ways that things are very much still relationship-based,” Hannah said.
“I go to these rug shows in New York or Germany, and people are like, ‘Oh, you’re Kas’ daughter. We know Kasra.’”
Kasra was astonished by the reception she received from his colleagues.
“It’s mostly a man’s world in the rug business,” Kasra said. “Surprisingly — very surprisingly — she was well received by the community. They liked her. She’s a tough cookie.”
Asian Trade Rug Company has two sides: retail and cleaning and buying.
“In the retail environment, we also do cleaning and repairs, so it’s a very involved, hands-on, customer face-to-face experience,” Kasra said.
“On the other side, we’re an importer and we deal with suppliers from all over the world. They are unique suppliers from all over the world. You’re dealing with nomads and villagers. That made a different challenge.”
Hannah was ready to take on the challenge, despite the industry’s trends.
“So many of the vendors have either no kids who are interested in taking over for them, so they just liquidate, or they go out of business,” Hannah said.
As with any personal or business relationship, there were trying times. He realized the apple did not fall far from the tree.
“Hannah is pretty strong-willed, kind of like me,” Kasra said. “To be honest, what happened was through experience I found out that quite often in our disagreements, she’s right and I’m wrong.”
He eventually realized that times had changed in unexpected ways.
“In dealing with employees, most of my employees are — I don’t even know what these terms mean anymore — Gen X, younger people,” he said.
“Hannah is actually much more understanding of their needs and their mentality than I was. She wanted to institute some changes in how we handle our personnel and how we address their situations. I was reluctant at first. I thought it was a little too liberal for my taste, but again, I was proven wrong. It actually works to collaborate with people and understand their needs, the cultural differences, and how they grew up versus how I grew up.”
Hannah has her own lessons to learn.
“There were challenging moments,” Hannah agreed. “You have the new generation coming in and I was, maybe, a little overzealous when I first came in and wanted to turn everything up on its head. I’d come from larger companies, and I’d seen big systems and businesses in operation. I quickly wanted to do all of that.”
Hannah and Kasra actually shared some of the same ideas.
“Everything that I thought of or thought to do, he also thought of at some point,” she said.
That includes changing the business’ name, possible expansion and machine-made rug sales.
“Every time I had an idea, he said, ‘Well, I thought about that.’ … Ideas are one thing, but actually implementing and being a go-getter and doing is another story.”
Hannah mentioned that she still seeks advice from her dad every day.
“I’ve learned just to have an immense amount of respect for him and for what he’s built,” she said.
Kasra said he was confident when he passed the torch to his daughter.
“Basically, the three years that she was training (or she was training me), she proved that she’s perfectly capable of handling all these complex (situations) — dealing with customers, dealing with suppliers, dealing with nomads and villagers — than I thought she would be,” he said.
“When I decided to retire, it was actually pretty easy to hand the keys over to her.”
Kasra’s confidence was not misplaced.
“We had our best year ever last year,” he said. “For a 47-year-old company, that’s quite a statement.”
This article appears in Jun 5-12, 2025.