CEO Awards
Most Respect CEOs
In collaboration with the
International Institute of Management
Hall of Fame
A Special CEO Honor
CEO Profile
Muhammad Yunus - CEO of Grameen Bank and the
recipient of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize
The Economist CEO who made a difference and made a profit
Company Profile
Industry: Financial Services
(Microcredit)
Employees: 24,700
Revenues: $ 9.8B
Market Cap: $ 6.7B
CEO Achievements
Transforming the life of millions of people
helping them fight poverty while making a profit.
“Muhammad Yunus’ ideas have already had a great impact on the
Third World, and...hearing his appeal for a ‘poverty-free world’
from the source itself can be as stirring as that all-American
myth of bootstrap success.” - The Washington Post
Former U.S. President Bill Clinton was a vocal advocate for
awarding the Nobel Prize to Muhammad Yunus. In a speech given at University of California, Berkeley in
2002, President Clinton described Dr. Yunus as "a man who long ago
should have won the Nobel Prize [and] I’ll keep saying that until
they finally give it to him.
Professor Muhammad Yunus
is internationally recognized for his work in poverty alleviation
and the empowerment of poor women. He successfully
melded capitalism with social responsibility to create the Grameen
Bank, a microcredit institution committed to providing small amounts
of working capital to the poor for self-employment. From its origins
as an action-research project in 1976, Grameen Bank has grown to
provide collateral-free loans to 7.5 million clients in more than
82,072 villages in Bangladesh and 97% of whom are women.
The successful and innovative approach to poverty
alleviation pioneered by Professor Yunus in a small village in
Bangladesh has inspired a global microcredit movement reaching out
to millions of poor women in a hundred countries throughout the
world from rural South Africa to inner city
Chicago.
The unethical and risky derivative financial practices of many bankers proved toxic to
their customers, employees and investors. What is sad is that
the US government proposed the creation of the "Bad Bank" to absorb
all their toxic assets. US economists and
government policy makers can learn a few lessons from Muhammad Yunus by creating
the "Good bank". Not only it is a good socioeconomic goal
to serve the underserved communities, it is also good for the
investors. With its $9 billion collateral-free loans to
7.5 million clients and amazing rate of 98% loan repayment rates
(no
western bank can compete with that rate), the Grameen bank should
become the new model for banking and economic development. - Med Jones - President of
International Institute of Management
CEO Bio
Born in 1940, Muhammad Yunus is a world famous Bangladeshi banker.
Professor Muhammad Yunus received the Nobel
Peace Prize in 2006 in Oslo, Norway, for his pioneering work in
fighting global poverty through loans and other financial services
for the poor. Microcredit involves the lending of small amounts of
money to the world’s poorest people to start micro-businesses and
move themselves away from poverty. He previously was a professor of
economics where he developed the concepts of microcredit and
microfinance. He is one of the founding members of Global
Elders. Yunus also serves on the board of directors of the United
Nations Foundation, a public charity created in 1998 with
entrepreneur and philanthropist Ted Turner’s historic $1 billion
gift to support United Nations causes. The UN Foundation builds and
implements public-private partnerships to address the world’s most
pressing problems, and broadens support for the UN
Yunus is the author of Banker to the Poor and
a founding board member of Grameen America and Grameen Foundation.
CEO Insights
I went to the bank and proposed that they lend money to the poor
people. The bankers almost fell over.... My greatest challenge has
been to change the mindset of people. Mindsets play strange tricks
on us. We see things the way our minds have instructed our eyes to
see. - Muhammad Yunus, CEO of Grameen Bank.
But we have created a society that does not allow opportunities
for those people to take care of themselves because we have denied
them those opportunities...I wanted to give money to people like
this woman so that they would be free from the moneylenders to sell
their product at the price which the markets gave them - which was
much higher than what the trader was giving them. - Muhammad Yunus,
CEO of Grameen Bank.
I was teaching in one of the universities while the country was
suffering from a severe famine. People were dying of hunger, and I
felt very helpless. As an economist, I had no tool in my tool box to
fix that kind of situation. - Muhammad Yunus, CEO of Grameen Bank.
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