Mahatma Gandhi
93% Profile Match
Photo: University of Salford Press Office, 2013, CC BY 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons 'Muhammad Yunus (cropped).jpg' (derivative of 'Professor Muhammad Yunus- Building Social Business Summit (8758300102).jpg'), photograph by the University of Salford Press Office, 18 May 2013, from the University of Salford Flickr account (photo 8758300102), tagged CC BY 2.0 and Flickr-reviewed on Commons on 5 September 2024; the live Flickr page shows the Attribution 2.0 licence. The Commons crop is 3000 x 3148 and was downscaled only (never upscaled) to 1144 x 1200. · CC BY 2.0
economist · Contemporary
Muhammad Yunus
b. 1940
Known For
socialentrepreneurialinnovation
Not yet included in personality matching — the documented evidence doesn't yet cover enough of the personality model. Everything else on this page is fully available.
Trait Constellation
Key Achievements
In 1976 lent 27 dollars of his own money to 42 villagers in Jobra, then built an institutional solution; the project became the independent Grameen Bank in 1983.
Developed Grameen's collateral-free lending method (small group loans with weekly repayments, a group fund and a majority of women borrowers), which the Nobel Foundation says has been replicated in more than 100 countries.
Shared the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize with Grameen Bank for efforts to create economic and social development from below, and extended the model through Grameen Trust and related ventures such as GrameenPhone.
Moments That Reveal Them
After months of failing to persuade traditional banks to lend to the poor, Yunus obtained a Janata Bank credit line in 1976-77 by signing as guarantor himself.
This is consistent with taking personal responsibility to get a venture started when institutions resisted. Proactive Agency
Grameen first set minuscule daily payments, soon changed to weekly to cut the accounting load, and from 1979 expanded across five isolated districts to show the bank did not depend on Yunus's personal charisma.
This is consistent with an iterative, test-and-adjust approach to building the lending model. Experimentation
Turning Points
The 1974 famine shook Yunus, then an economics professor, who asked what the point of economic theory was when people around him were dying of hunger; by 1976 he was lending to villagers.
This is consistent with a shift from academic economics toward hands-on poverty work. Impact Motivation
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Sources
- Muhammad Yunus (Q43969) -- verified live via the Wikidata API (2026-10-24): English label 'Muhammad Yunus', description 'Bangladeshi banker, Nobel Peace Prize recipient and the former Chief Adviser of Bangladesh', born 1940-06-28, no date of death, citizenship Bangladesh, Korean label '무함마드 유누스'. Orientation only; not used as support for any row.
- Nobel Foundation, 'Muhammad Yunus - Biographical' (nobelprize.org, written at the time of the 2006 Peace Prize award), read in full: he established the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh in 1983 on the belief that credit is a fundamental human right, aiming to help poor people escape poverty with loans on suitable terms; the model began with his personal loans to destitute basket-weavers in the mid-1970s and has been replicated in more than 100 countries; schooling in Chittagong and Dhaka, Fulbright study and a Vanderbilt economics PhD in 1969, then teaching; UN advisory roles on women and finance; list of prizes. CANONICAL SIGNIFICANCE SOURCE. Award-body biography, admiring and contemporary with the prize.
- Nobel Foundation, Award Ceremony Speech for the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize by the Nobel Committee chairman (nobelprize.org), read in full: Yunus returned to Bangladesh in 1972, was shaken by the 1974 famine and asked what the point of economic theory was while people starved, lent 27 dollars to 42 craftsmen in 1976 and then decided an institutional solution was needed; Grameen Bank since 1983 lent almost six billion dollars to nearly seven million borrowers, over 95 per cent of them women, with a high repayment rate; the committee cites female empowerment, development from below and replication in nearly a hundred countries; and a quoted Yunus phrase 'Lend the poor money in amounts which suit them'. Committee statement, retrospective and admiring.
- Encyclopedia.com (Gale), 'Grameen Bank' company-history entry, read in full: the 1976 loan of under 27 dollars to 42 villagers of Jobra; the months of wrangling to obtain a Janata Bank loan with Yunus as guarantor; the iterative design of the lending method (daily payments soon changed to weekly, one-year terms, a group of five, a group fund); the 1978 Krishi Bank arrangement and the 1979-1982 expansion designed to prove the bank did not depend on his charisma; 1983 independent bank; the Sixteen Decisions; housing loans; the Grameen Trust, GrameenPhone with Telenor, Grameen Shakti; setbacks (1991 loan-forgiveness policy and cyclone, 1998 floods); and the notes that critics reported some borrowers take out additional loans to repay and that the bank had to watch 'pipelining' of women's loans to husbands. Business-reference history with a critical aside.
- Nelson Mandela Foundation, 'Professor Muhammad Yunus' biography page (nelsonmandela.org; Yunus was a founding member of The Elders), read in full: family and education, Fulbright and Vanderbilt PhD, teaching at Middle Tennessee State, return in 1972, the Rural Economics Programme and 1975 three-share farm project, the 1976 Jobra loans and December 1976 Janata Bank credit line, the 1983 conversion to Grameen Bank, 7.5 million borrowers (97 percent women) by May 2008, the Grameen group of companies and Grameen Trust, and awards. Institutional biography, admiring and based on Yunus-side information.
- Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, Rachel Glennerster and Cynthia Kinnan, 'The miracle of microfinance? Evidence from a randomized evaluation' (MIT Department of Economics / J-PAL working paper, June 2010, later published in American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 2015), abstract and introduction read: the first randomized evaluation of introducing microcredit in a new market (104 Hyderabad slums, Spandana, not Grameen Bank); 15-18 months on, no effect on average monthly expenditure per capita, more durable-goods spending, new businesses up by one third, and no impact on health, education or women's decision-making. Independent academic evidence on microcredit in general, used as a counter-voice to claims about poverty reduction, not as evidence of Yunus's own conduct.
- Milford Bateman, 'Has the microfinance bubble really burst?' (Oxfam 'From Poverty to Power' blog, c. 2011), read in full: a critic's case that independent, rigorous evaluations have been unable to show meaningful poverty reduction from microfinance, that much lending goes to consumption at high interest rates, that Bangladesh and Jobra village remain poor, and that microenterprise failure can leave clients poorer; also notes the then-current dispute over Yunus's leadership of Grameen Bank, which was NOT scored. Critic's position, partisan in tone; targets the industry more than Yunus's own conduct.
- David Roodman, 'Why Doesn't Microfinance Work?' reply post on the Center for Global Development blog (cgdev.org), read in full: Roodman's response to a defence of Bateman's book, standing by his criticism that Bateman is careless with evidence and offering examples (for instance that Grameen's mandatory savings requirement was 5 per cent from the start rather than a 2001 change); notes that GrameenPhone's marginal returns to additional 'phone ladies' fell as they multiplied; and stresses he is not claiming Yunus never self-aggrandized or that evaluators always see clearly. Independent expert commentary that critiques both advocates and a critic.
- Wikimedia Commons file page 'Muhammad Yunus (cropped).jpg' (wikitext and API record) and the live Flickr photo page 'Professor Muhammad Yunus: Building Social Business Summit' by the University of Salford account, checked for the portrait's licence: photographed 18 May 2013 at a University of Salford summit, uploaded to Flickr by the University of Salford Press Office, tagged CC BY 2.0 with a Flickr licence review dated 5 September 2024; the live Flickr page shows the Attribution 2.0 licence; the cropped derivative is 3000 x 3148. Not used for any scoring.