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3 Things to Know About Tomorrow's Business Leaders

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Today's young business leaders are poised to outperform their more established counterparts - and that's not just the usual energy and naivety of youth talking.

Today's young leaders are emerging at a time when forces have converged to broaden people's expectations of business. This generation contains some of the savviest and most connected consumers in history. Many of them have seen their parents work in, and potentially be let go from, uninspiring business environments. They've grown up in an era when corporate scandal was frequent and corporate responsibility became a department.

On the other hand, they've also seen the extraordinary rise of social enterprises and start-ups that answer the question: "What problem are we trying to solve?" long before they ask: "What's the next big money maker?"

And now they're setting the bar higher.

Don't get me wrong. Up-and-coming leaders need and love profitability just as much as their predecessors, but they're savvy enough to see profit as the end, not the means. The big differentiator will be that successful leaders of the future will tap into the extraordinary value and competitive advantage that comes when their companies' missions - their core reasons for being - draw others in. They will hard-wire their operations to work effectively with others across society to deliver those missions and leverage resources in entirely new ways - and outperform the market as a result.

Here's what the new generation of CEOs will do differently.

Young leaders know why they're in business in the first place

For the next generation of game-changers, the payday (and what a payday it will be) grows out of setting ambitious missions that people actually care about. It seems so obvious, doesn't it? After all, a mission statement is your most important declaration to the world about why your business even exists. But take a look at most company missions and you'll find things like relevance and purpose woefully lacking.

Here are three red flags to look out for:

Uninspired mission statements are chronically narcissistic. This business of "we're going to be the #1" or "the industry leader" raises exactly one question: besides shareholders, who cares? Many up-and-coming leaders are starting to better understand that if consumers, employees, communities and even governments don't care about their company's mission, they'll be in dire straits fairly quickly.

Uninspired mission statements focus on the business model. A business model is not a mission and it never will be. Worse yet, elevating the business model to the level of mission makes a company far less capable of pivoting when market changes demand that their model evolves. Our future CEOs have grown up in an environment where the most agile businesses have been best at weathering storms.

Uninspired mission statements talk about how a company will behave. I'm reminded of a retail chain that seeks to "please customers and treat employees well". Since when did the bare minimum of behaviour constitute a mission?

Successful leaders of the future will understand the bigger picture. They will recognize the interplay between society's most pressing issues and the ability of their industries and companies to simultaneously solve those issues and thrive. They will recognize that major problems, left unchecked, will eventually block their business objectives.

Think about it. Nike won't survive if the world continues to become less physically active. Neither will ESPN. Banks lose relevance if the majority of a population can barely afford everyday expenses. An energy company doesn't stand a chance if it runs out of product. The theory holds true for pretty much any company of any size in any industry.

Put simply, future leaders will embrace missions that are visionary and describe what their companies will deliver to the world. And those missions will matter to a much larger group than just shareholders.

Young leaders see untapped value that's there for the taking

By now our new mainstream corporate heroes are solving massive problems during the course of daily business. This has huge implications.

First, they'll need to learn how to play really well with others. Corporations are famous for creating and then operating inside safe and controlled corporate bubbles. The new vanguard is about to burst that bubble. Truly ambitious missions require other people's participation - governments, non-profits, academics, to name just a few. Future leaders will need to define new ways to work with these groups more authentically and systemically than typical efforts seen today. If they get this right, our young leaders will start to experience a level of broad-based support from unlikely actors who actually want their companies to win. It will create a tailwind experienced by very few in the corporate sector so far, and illuminate the ridiculous amount of untapped value being left on the table today.

When a more broadly supported corporate mission is delivered authentically and consistently, companies can realize surprising cost savings and fewer barriers to business. The PR crises, risk-mitigation headaches, employee-retention or productivity issues that drain valuable dollars - they can all dissipate dramatically, freeing up resources for innovation and more strategic reinvestment. Imagine an employee base so proud of what they are working towards that they consistently over-deliver with great products, services and efficiency savings. If your own employees or others want you to win because you stand for something worth fighting for, they'll do whatever they can to help you.

Finally, missions that create shared purpose expand available market opportunity. Driving towards a mission that means something (and delivering on it) inherently expands the size of the pie versus an exhaustive and expensive effort to expand the size of an arbitrary slice. Because these companies are fundamentally solving a bigger problem, there's a bigger portion of the population to innovate for and a broader base of business opportunities to expand into legitimately over time.

There are some established companies we can look to for inspiration. Take Google, for example. Its mission is to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful". Democratizing access to information everywhere? That's world-changing. And it shows up in a ton of different ways, from emergency alerts that are the product of government partnerships to a re-imagined ISP experience (currently being tested in a few US cities) that provides connection speeds that are faster, cheaper and more reliable than anything people have experienced before. In an industry fraught with political challenges and sensitivities, Google is finding new ways to work across sectors. The result is expanded market opportunity and a roster of essential and valuable new supporters.

Indeed, those who lead the way will have big challenges pioneering how to get things done across the traditionally well-defined tri-sector territories. But they'll also be poised to extract significant business value (and profitability) that has been left on the table for a very long time.

Young leaders will stay off the Titanic

The vast majority of businesses currently operate within a system that puts shareholders first and incentivizes quarterly returns over sustainable growth. You could argue that deeply embedded corporate norms and a very powerful establishment will continue to stand in the way of progress, but I don't buy it. We're now talking about a century-old corporate financing legacy system whose time has come and gone. Young leaders don't have to put up with that, and many of the world's bravest CEOs today are already showing the way.

As an example, take a look at Tesla's eight-year, infinite-mile warranty. This was a bold move in a world where three-year, 36,000-mile warranties have long been the norm. Then Tesla did the unthinkable and extended its warranty to existing owners as well. CEO Elon Musk addressed investors and acknowledged the likely negative impact on short-term earnings. And then he went ahead and extended the warranties anyway. That's a clear signal that Tesla puts the interests of its customers and faith in its product ahead of any arbitrary, short-term KPI. It bucks the system in a big way, and it will also pay off far more in the long run.

Today, however, we're seeing new leaders buck the system entirely. They're finding alternate forms of capital, demanding new structures and resisting arbitrary corporate norms that have existed for decades.

I can't wait to see the group of revolutionaries who have the courage to go after missions that are bigger than themselves in the mainstream corporate world. And really, while the next generation may be pre-wired for this, real shifts will occur as the most established leaders of today make this seismic shift. These leaders will chart new territory for sure: resisting the creation of internal corporate bubbles and rewiring organizations for authentic multisector relationships - possible because they will lead business missions that unite, rather than separate.

From what I've seen so far, plenty of young people (and even a few current CEOs) have the guts to take this on. And if that's the sense of entitlement this generation is supposed to have, then I say bring it on.
Have you read?
Author: Lisa MacCallum, Formerly Nike Inc Vice President (2001-2014), currently independent adviser, author, speaker and Young Global Leader. Image: A man walks past a wall painting labelled the "Map of Start-up" at the Google Campus start-up space in the Gangnam district of Seoul, May 8, 2015. REUTERS/Thomas Peter Why start-ups need female founders
10 lessons from a start-up entrepreneur
3 factors that drive leadership success

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3 things to know about tomorrow's business leaders

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The World Economic Forum is an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging business, political, academic and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. Incorporated as a not-for-profit foundation in 1971, and headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, the Forum is tied to no political, partisan or national interests.

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12 Fictional Characters Leaders can Learn from

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12 fictional characters that leaders can learn from - Real Business

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Movies, TV programs and books have played a part in our lives for decades. So, from Darth Vader and Walter White to Iron Man and James T. Kirk, here are 12 fictional characters from which every leader can learn valuable lessons from.

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Manage Yourself First

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If you can't manage your own life, how can you expect to manage other people? Think about it for a second. Don't all the business management tips you have come across so far pretty much come down to answering that question in one way or another?

How do you go about managing a business project that requires managing the personalities, quirks, character issues and emotional pendulums of others?

Business management is about more than just telling underlings what to do and when to do it. It is about more than asking co-workers to politely get back in the game instead of furtively tweeting away about whatever life event took place the night before. These business management tips essentially boil down to getting you to look at how you manage yourself as a means of learning to manage others.

Time Exploitation

Morning person or night owl? Which type are you? Managing life at 10:30 in the morning may be a breeze for you, while you have trouble remembering if you kissed the kid goodnight or not by 10:30 at night. Take a serious look at how well you manage your life through different periods of the day to get a better understanding of the reality that everybody's biological clock is set to a different time zone. Managing others will become easier and more effective if you make the effort to find out when the people you are counting on to do their best work...do their best work. For instance, if you've got two people who do their best work early in the day and two people who do their best work in the afternoon, project management begins by assigning the introductory elements to the morning people and the secondary elements to those who are just coming into their own after lunch.

Setting Goals

The value of setting goals that are strictly defined cannot be overestimated when it comes to managing a team. Do you set goals for yourself? You're running a business, right? So, yeah, of course you do. If you manage goals for yourself effectively, then you intuitively know that effective management of others is based on ensuring that everybody is aware of the strictly defined overall goal as well as the strictly defined goal for their individual part in the process. If people know the goal and the mission and given the tools to success your success will skyrocket. The key is setting goals for everyone in your organization that are tough but achievable.

Think about the way you manage your personal life. You clearly set goals for yourself, right? When you achieve those goals, you make a point of not rewarding yourself, right? Of course not! Who does that? But what you probably don't do is reward yourself monetarily every time you achieve a goal. Setting rewards for accomplishing strictly defined goals doesn't have to mean actual cash payment. Rewards can range from a new desk chair where all the wheels work, to a day off from work, to tickets for a ballgame. Be creative in organizing your reward system and you will find that managing other people becomes much easier. There is more to life than money. More business owners need to understand this.

You know what? You hate meetings. The people you manage hate meetings. Everybody hates meetings. That is one of the two absolute truths in America. Unfortunately, you can't manage a business of more than one person without holding meetings. What you can do is take a tip from the way you manage your life away from the office. Do you hold a meeting to discuss who will take out the garbage? Do you hold a meeting to discuss what to have for dinner? Maybe, but probably not. The point being that you don't need to call an official meeting when you can just easily provide all the particular information in the form of a report or e-mail or conference call or just, you know, dropping in on people and talking. People pay more attention to their e-mails than they do at meetings. This is second absolute truth in America. When it comes to business management tips, maybe you've been looking in the wrong places. Just find the nearest mirror and look at your own life. The way you manage it probably says a lot about how you should manage others.
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The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

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Manage Yourself First, Then You Can Effectively Manage Others

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If you can't manage your own life, how can you expect to manage other people? Think about it for a second. Don't all the business management tips you have come across so far pretty much come down to answering that question in one way or another?

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10 Personality Traits Needed to Succeed in Finance

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10 personality traits needed to succeed in finance

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Your resume can check every box on and you may hit all the right notes in your cover letter, but if you don't let have the 'right' personality, then you're unlikely to get an offer. Soft skills and personality traits are key to getting hired.

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It's Time For Businesses to Embrace Young Leadership

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Early in my career I was hired to be the managing editor of a daily business newspaper. I remember my first day on that job well.

As I walked around and introduced myself, I quickly realized I would be managing people twice my age and that I was considerably younger than most of the staff. Upon introducing myself as the new managing editor, some people laughed, some ignored me. One person chastised me by saying, “You’re the new editor? Give me a break. I’ve been working at this place longer than you’ve been alive.”

At the end of the day, I approached the publisher and shared my concerns and observations. The publisher responded candidly: “Look, I didn’t want to like you. I interviewed a lot of people for this job, but the fact is you were the best qualified. So, I decided to take a risk and I hired you. You can do this job. It’s not going to be easy, but you can do it.”

The publisher was right. That job wasn’t easy; it was hands down the most difficult job I’ve ever had. But that’s not the point. What I really want business leaders to ponder is the publisher’s decision to take a risk and hire someone young.

Youth Movement

It’s worth pondering because far too few leaders are opting to do this at a time when the business world desperately needs to hire young leaders.

Almost every single sector, save for technology, is predominantly led by people in the baby boomer generation, or those born between 1946-1964. When this generation came of age, the boomers were the largest generation in history and had the opportunity to move into positions of power and influence and stay there.

However, at the end of 2015, and for the first time in 34 years, boomers are no longer the workforce majority. It is now Generation Y, also known as millennials, and the majority of workers are in their late 20s and early 30s.

We’re experiencing the largest shift in human capital in history, yet one generation still holds nearly all the power in nearly every sector in nearly every corner of the world and the proverbial baton isn’t getting passed.

Consider these statistics:

Gallup reports that less than one-third of U.S. employees have been engaged in their jobs and workplaces during the past 17 years.

Deloitte’s Shift Index demonstrates that the profitability of 20,000 U.S. organizations has been declining since 1965.

The Conference Board reports that job satisfaction has been on a steady decline since 1987.

Executive research projects continually draw the same conclusion: succession planning isn’t a priority for 70 percent of executives.

Why is this happening?

For starters, we inherited institutions designed for the 20th century, which are unable to cope with the mounting pressures of constant change. Many organizations are still structured to maximize efficiency by way of clearly defined roles, which automatically creates resistance to any variance.

Whether they realize it or not, many companies today are structured such that they actively discourage passion.

Think about it. In the 20th century, corporations were built for scalable efficiency. Jobs were well defined and organized to support processes designed to meet plans and forecasts. Workers were trained to protect company information. Any collaboration with those outside of the organization was highly monitored or even discouraged. Most innovation was driven from within the company’s four walls, often without feedback or customer interaction.

Now we’ve moved into the 21st century — the talent economy. And today’s workers certainly don’t want to work in Industrial-era organizations with clearly defined roles, organizational silos, top-down management or predictability.

In the turbulent and competitive marketplace, we need leaders who are willing to disrupt the status quo, working in collaboration with young professionals willing to innovate and bring new solutions to the forefront. We need talent generation.

Consider Google. Employees are drawn to Google because working there means something more than just working for a technology company. In fact, Google is successful for reasons that have very little to do with what the company actually does.

Google was built on the premise that people want meaningful work, knowledge of what’s happening in their environment and the opportunity to shape that environment. Simply put, Google put its employees at the center of everything.

In other words, Google embodies the two trademarks of a 21st century organization: People first and future focused. Google has grown into a business that earns almost $90 billion in annual revenues and continually earns honors as the best company to work for in the world.

When more leaders make the conscious decision and take the appropriate actions to value people more than profits and invest in the next generation of talent, that’s not only when we will succeed at collaboration and innovation, it’s when we will reverse the decline, resolve the conflicts and ultimately prevent our economy from failing.

That publisher who decided to take a risk and hire me? I later found out the publisher had to convince the newspaper’s owner and board of directors to hire me. I was the youngest person and the only female on record to have held that leadership role.

I was a risk. And yet, the publisher advocated for me to have the opportunity to lead. But isn’t that every leader’s responsibility?

We desperately need leaders who are willing to disrupt status quo and work alongside and advocate on behalf of younger generations. The best leaders seek to add value to an organization, not slow it down or kill it entirely. The best leaders realize they don’t have all the answers and will benefit from the insights of a generation raised amid disruption and rapidly evolving technology and seeing the world through a different lens.

Employee engagement and productivity have steadily been declining for more than 50 years, and few have raised their voices in opposition or dedicated themselves to initiating a change.

It’s time to think about leadership, because our leadership is aging and our talent practices are failing. It’s time for a change. It’s time to make the future a priority for every generation.

Sarah Sladek is CEO of XYZ University, a leadership advisory firm. This article is based on insights from her most recent book, “Talent Generation.” To comment, email editor@talenteconomy.io.

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It's Time for Businesses to Embrace Young Leadership

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Early in my career I was hired to be the managing editor of a daily business newspaper. I remember my first day on that job well. As I walked around and introduced myself, I quickly realized I would be managing people twice my age and that I was considerably younger than most of the staff.

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Whale Rider (2002)

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Steve Jobs Leadership Skills Breakdown - How To Motivate People

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The Explainer: What It Takes to Be a Great Leader

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The Explainer: What It Takes to Be a Great Leader

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Akshita Agarwal  TED-Ed

The paradox of value

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Imagine you're on a game show and you can choose between two prizes: a diamond ... or a bottle of water. It's an easy choice - the diamonds are more valuable. But if given the same choice when you were dehydrated in the desert, after wandering for days, would you choose differently?

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Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)

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Tom Holland in Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)

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The Rise of Nike: How One Man Built a Billion-Dollar Brand

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The Rise of Nike: How One Man Built a Billion-Dollar Brand

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Bill Gates

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This article is about the co-founder of Microsoft. For other people with the same name, see Bill Gates (disambiguation).

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How great leaders inspire action

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Simon Sinek has a simple but powerful model for inspirational leadership -- starting with a golden circle and the question: “Why?” His examples include Apple, Martin Luther King Jr. and the Wright brothers…

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Muhammed Yunus

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Muhammad Yunus ( Bengali: মুহাম্মদ ইউনূস; born 28 June 1940) is a Bangladeshi social entrepreneur, banker, economist, and civil society leader who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for founding the Grameen Bank and pioneering the concepts of microcredit and microfinance. These loans are given to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans. In 2006, Yunus and the Grameen Bank were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for their efforts through microcredit to create economic and social development from below". The Norwegian Nobel Committee said that "lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty" and that "across cultures and civilizations, Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that even the poorest of the poor can work to bring about their own development". Yunus has received several other national and international honours. He received the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2009 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2010.

In 2008, he was rated number 2 in Foreign Policy magazine's list of the 'Top 100 Global Thinkers'.

In February 2011, Yunus together with Saskia Bruysten, Sophie Eisenmann and Hans Reitz co-founded Yunus Social Business - Global Initiatives (YSB). YSB creates and empowers social businesses to address and solve social problems around the world. As the international implementation arm for Yunus' vision of a new, humane capitalism, YSB manages incubator funds for social businesses in developing countries and provides advisory services to companies, governments, foundations and NGOs.

In 2012, he became Chancellor of Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland. Previously, he was a professor of economics at Chittagong University in Bangladesh. He published several books related to his finance work. He is a founding board member of Grameen America and Grameen Foundation, which support microcredit.

Yunus also serves on the board of directors of the United Nations Foundation, a public charity created in 1998 by American philanthropist Ted Turner's $1 billion gift to support UN causes.

In March 2011, the Bangladesh government fired Yunus from his position at Grameen Bank, citing legal violations and an age limit on his position.

The third of nine children, Yunus was born on 28 June 1940 to a Bengali Muslim family in the village of Bathua, by the Kaptai road in Hathazari, Chittagong in the Bengal Presidency of the British Raj, present Bangladesh. His father was Hazi Dula Mia Shoudagar, a jeweler, and his mother was Sufia Khatun. His early childhood was spent in the village. In 1944, his family moved to the city of Chittagong, and he moved from his village school to Lamabazar Primary School. By 1949, his mother was afflicted with psychological illness. Later, he passed the matriculation examination from Chittagong Collegiate School ranking 16th of 39,000 students in East Pakistan. During his school years, he was an active Boy Scout, and travelled to West Pakistan and India in 1952, and to Canada in 1955 to attend Jamborees. Later while Yunus studied at Chittagong College, he became active in cultural activities and won awards for drama. In 1957, he enrolled in the Department of Economics at Dhaka University and completed his BA in 1960 and MA in 1961.

After his graduation, Yunus joined the Bureau of Economics as a research assistant to the economics researches of Professor Nurul Islam and Rehman Sobhan. Later, he was appointed lecturer in economics in Chittagong College in 1961. During that time, he also set up a profitable packaging factory on the side. In 1965, he received a Fulbright scholarship to study in the United States. He obtained his PhD in economics from the Vanderbilt University Graduate Program in Economic Development (GPED) in 1971. From 1969 to 1972, Yunus was assistant professor of economics at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro.

During the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, Yunus founded a citizen's committee and ran the Bangladesh Information Center, with other Bangladeshis in the United States, to raise support for liberation. He also published the Bangladesh Newsletter from his home in Nashville. After the War, he returned to Bangladesh and was appointed to the government's Planning Commission headed by Nurul Islam. However, he found the job boring and resigned to join Chittagong University as head of the Economics department. After observing the famine of 1974, he became involved in poverty reduction and established a rural economic programme as a research project. In 1975, he developed a Nabajug (New Era) Tebhaga Khamar (three share farm) which the government adopted as the Packaged Input Programme. In order to make the project more effective, Yunus and his associates proposed the Gram Sarkar (the village government) programme. Introduced by president Ziaur Rahman in the late 1970s, the Government formed 40,392 village governments as a fourth layer of government in 2003. On 2 August 2005, in response to a petition by Bangladesh Legal Aids and Services Trust (BLAST) the High Court had declared village governments illegal and unconstitutional.

His concept of microcredit for supporting innovators in multiple developing countries also inspired programmes such as the Info lady Social Entrepreneurship Programme.

In 1976, during visits to the poorest households in the village of Jobra near Chittagong University, Yunus discovered that very small loans could make a disproportionate difference to a poor person. Village women who made bamboo furniture had to take usurious loans to buy bamboo, and repay their profits to the lenders. Traditional banks did not want to make tiny loans at reasonable interest to the poor due to high risk of default. But Yunus believed that, given the chance, the poor will repay the money and hence microcredit was a viable business model. Yunus lent US$27 of his money to 42 women in the village, who made a profit of BDT 0.50 (US$0.02) each on the loan. Thus, Yunus is credited with the idea of microcredit.

In December 1976, Yunus finally secured a loan from the government Janata Bank to lend to the poor in Jobra. The institution continued to operate, securing loans from other banks for its projects. By 1982, it had 28,000 members. On 1 October 1983, the pilot project began operation as a full-fledged bank for poor Bangladeshis and was renamed Grameen Bank ("Village Bank"). Yunus and his colleagues encountered everything from violent radical leftists to conservative clergy who told women that they would be denied a Muslim burial if they borrowed money from Grameen. By July 2007, Grameen had issued US$6.38 billion to 7.4 million borrowers. To ensure repayment, the bank uses a system of "solidarity groups". These small informal groups apply together for loans and its members act as co-guarantors of repayment and support one another's efforts at economic self-advancement.

In the late 1980s, Grameen started to diversify by attending to underutilized fishing ponds and irrigation pumps like deep tube wells. In 1989, these diversified interests started growing into separate organisations. The fisheries project became Grameen Motsho ("Grameen Fisheries Foundation") and the irrigation project became Grameen Krishi ("Grameen Agriculture Foundation"). In time, the Grameen initiative grew into a multi-faceted group of profitable and non-profit ventures, including major projects like Grameen Trust and Grameen Fund, which runs equity projects like Grameen Software Limited, Grameen CyberNet Limited, and Grameen Knitwear Limited, as well as Grameen Telecom, which has a stake in Grameenphone (GP), the biggest private phone company in Bangladesh. From its start in March 1997 to 2007, GP's Village Phone ( Polli Phone) project had brought cell-phone ownership to 260,000 rural poor in over 50,000 villages.

- Dr. Muhammad Yunus while talking about reason behind creating Grameen Bank

The success of the Grameen microfinance model inspired similar efforts in about 100 developing countries and even in developed countries including the United States. Many microcredit projects retain Grameen's emphasis of lending to women. More than 94% of Grameen loans have gone to women, who suffer disproportionately from poverty and who are more likely than men to devote their earnings to their families.

For his work with Grameen, Yunus was named an Ashoka: Innovators for the Public Global Academy Member in 2001. In the book Grameen Social Business Model, its author Rashidul Bari said that Grameen's social business model (GSBM) has gone from being theory to an inspiring practice adopted by leading universities (e.g., Glasgow), entrepreneurs (e.g., Franck Riboud) and corporations (e.g., Danone) across the globe. Through Grameen Bank, Rashidul Bari claims that Yunus demonstrated how Grameen Social Business Model can harness the entrepreneurial spirit to empower poor women and alleviate their poverty. One conclusion Bari suggested to draw from Yunus' concepts is that the poor are like a "bonsai tree", and they can do big things if they get access to the social business that holds potential to empower them to become self-sufficient.

Yunus was awarded the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, along with Grameen Bank, for their efforts to create economic and social development. In the prize announcement The Norwegian Nobel Committee mentioned:

Muhammad Yunus has shown himself to be a leader who has managed to translate visions into practical action for the benefit of millions of people, not only in Bangladesh, but also in many other countries. Loans to poor people without any financial security had appeared to be an impossible idea. From modest beginnings three decades ago, Yunus has, first and foremost through Grameen Bank, developed micro-credit into an ever more important instrument in the struggle against poverty.

Yunus was the first Bangladeshi to ever get a Nobel Prize. After receiving the news of the important award, Yunus announced that he would use part of his share of the $1.4 million (equivalent to $1.74 million in 2018) award money to create a company to make low-cost, high-nutrition food for the poor; while the rest would go toward setting up an eye hospital for the poor in Bangladesh.

Former US president Bill Clinton was a vocal advocate for the awarding of the Nobel Prize to Yunus. He expressed this in Rolling Stone magazine as well as in his autobiography In a speech given at University of California, Berkeley in 2002, President Clinton described Yunus as "a man who long ago should have won the Nobel Prize [in Economics and] I'll keep saying that until they finally give it to him." Conversely, The Economist stated explicitly that while Yunus was doing excellent work to fight poverty, it was not appropriate to award him the Peace Prize, stating: "... the Nobel committee could have made a braver, more difficult, choice by declaring that there would be no recipient at all."

He is one of only seven persons to have won the Nobel Peace Prize, Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Congressional Gold Medal. Other notable awards include the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1984, the World Food Prize, the International Simon Bolivar Prize (1996), the Prince of Asturias Award for Concord and the Sydney Peace Prize in 1998, and the Seoul Peace Prize in 2006. Additionally, Yunus has been awarded 50 honorary doctorate degrees from universities across 20 countries, and 113 international awards from 26 different countries including state honours from 10 countries. Bangladesh government brought out a commemorative stamp to honour his Nobel Award.

Yunus was named by Fortune Magazine in March 2012 as one of 12 greatest entrepreneurs of the current era. In its citation, Fortune Magazine said "Yunus' idea inspired countless numbers of young people to devote themselves to social causes all over the world."

In January 2008, Houston, Texas declared 14 January as "Muhammad Yunus Day".

Yunus was named among the most desired thinkers the world should listen to by the FP 100 (world's most influential elite) in the December 2009 issue of Foreign Policy magazine.

In 2010, The British Magazine New Statesman listed Yunus at 40th in the list of "The World's 50 Most Influential Figures 2010".

Yunus received 50 honorary doctorate degrees from universities from Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada, Costa Rica, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Lebanon, Malaysia, Peru, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, the UK, and the US. United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, invited Yunus to serve as an MDG Advocate. Yunus sits on the Board of United Nations Foundation, Schwab Foundation, Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, Grameen Credit Agricole Microcredit Foundation. He has been a member of Fondation Chirac's honour committee, ever since the foundation was launched in 2008 by former French president Jacques Chirac in order to promote world peace.

Yunus has become a well-known international figure. He has delivered numerous lectures around the world, and has appeared on popular television shows, including The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2006, The Colbert Report in 2008, Real Time with Bill Maher in 2009 and The Simpsons in 2010.[citation needed ] On Google+, Yunus is one of the most followed person worldwide, with over two million followers.

In early 2006 Yunus, along with other members of the civil society including Professor Rehman Sobhan, Justice Muhammad Habibur Rahman, Dr Kamal Hossain, Matiur Rahman, Mahfuz Anam and Debapriya Bhattacharya, participated in a campaign for honest and clean candidates in national elections. He considered entering politics in the later part of that year. On 11 February 2007, Yunus wrote an open letter, published in the Bangladeshi newspaper , where he asked citizens for views on his plan to float a political party to establish political goodwill, proper leadership and good governance. In the letter, he called on everyone to briefly outline how he should go about the task and how they can contribute to it. Yunus finally announced that he is willing to launch a political party tentatively called Citizens' Power ( Nagorik Shakti) on 18 February 2007. There was speculation that the army supported a move by Yunus into politics. On 3 May, however, Yunus declared that he had decided to abandon his political plans following a meeting with the head of the interim government, Fakhruddin Ahmed.

In July 2007 in Johannesburg, South Africa, Nelson Mandela, Graça Machel and Desmond Tutu convened a group of world leaders "to contribute their wisdom, independent leadership and integrity to tackle some of the world's toughest problems." Nelson Mandela announced the formation of this new group, The Elders, in a speech he delivered on the occasion of his 89th birthday. Yunus attended the launch of the group and was one of its founding members. He stepped down as an Elder in September 2009, stating that he was unable to do justice to his membership due to the demands of his work.

Yunus is a member of the Africa Progress Panel (APP), a group of ten distinguished individuals who advocate at the highest levels for equitable and sustainable development in Africa. Every year, the Panel releases a report, the Africa Progress Report, that outlines an issue of immediate importance to the continent and suggests a set of associated policies. In July 2009, Yunus became a member of the SNV Netherlands Development Organisation International Advisory Board to support the organisation's poverty reduction work. Since 2010, Yunus has served as a Commissioner for the Broadband Commission for Digital Development, a UN initiative which seeks to use broadband internet services to accelerate social and economic development. In March 2016, he was appointed by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to the High-Level Commission on Health Employment and Economic Growth, which was co-chaired by presidents François Hollande of France and Jacob Zuma of South Africa. Yunus urged Myanmar to end violence against Rohingya Muslims.

The Government announced a review of Grameen Bank activities on 11 January 2011, which is ongoing. In February, several international leaders, such as Mary Robinson, stepped up their defence of Yunus through a number of efforts, including the founding of a formal network of supporters known as "Friends of Grameen".

On 15 February 2011, the Finance Minister of Bangladesh, Abul Maal Abdul Muhith, declared that Yunus should "stay away" from Grameen Bank while it is being investigated. On 2 March 2011, Muzammel Huq - a former Bank employee, whom the government had appointed Chairman in January - announced that Yunus had been fired as Managing Director of the Bank. However, Bank General Manager Jannat-E Quanine issued a statement that Yunus was "continuing in his office" pending review of the legal issues surrounding the controversy .

In March 2011, Yunus petitioned the Bangladesh High Court challenging the legality of the decision by the Bangladeshi Central Bank to remove him as Managing Director of Grameen Bank. The same day, nine elected directors of Grameen Bank filed a second petition. U.S. Senator John Kerry expressed his support to Yunus in a statement on 5 March 2011 and declared that he was "deeply concerned" by this affair. The same day in Bangladesh, thousands of people protested and formed human chains to support Yunus. The High Court hearing on the petitions, was planned for 6 March 2011 but postponed. On 8 March 2011, the Court confirmed Yunus's dismissal.

A Danish documentary, Caught in Micro Debt, produced and directed by journalist Tom Heinemann, aired on Norwegian national television NRK in November 2010. It made a number of allegations against Yunus and Grameen Bank. Those allegations were disproved by later inquiries. The documentary accused Yunus and Grameen Bank of diverting 7 billion taka (about 100 million US dollars) given by the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD) from Grameen Bank to another organisation called Grameen Kalyan in 1996. This allegation was widely spread in the Bangladeshi electronic media in December 2010. On 6 December, NORAD published a statement clearing Yunus and the Bank from any wrongdoing on this point, following a comprehensive review of NORAD's support commissioned by the Minister of International Development.

However, the allegations quickly spread through the Bangladesh media. Leading Bangladeshi economist Rehman Sobhan stated "Rather than first seeking clarification and response from Grameen Bank as to the validity of the TV programme, some sections of the media and society pounced on it with unseemly enthusiasm, using it as an opportunity to cite wrongdoing in a widely respected organization." Yunus asked for consistent and transparent investigations on these matters.

Accusation of 'loan sharking' and effectiveness of microfinance

The allegations against Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank were made in a context where some people began to question the effectiveness of microfinance, prompted by the actions of some for-profit microfinance institutions (MFIs) in India and Mexico. Coercion, peer pressure and physical harassment were reportedly used as loan repayment practices in some specific MFIs. Commercialisation of microcredit prompted Yunus to state that he "never imagined that one day microcredit would give rise to its own breed of loan sharks."

The lure of profits attracted some for-profit MFIs to hold initial public offerings (IPOs), including the largest Indian MFI, SKS Microfinance, which held an IPO in July 2010. In September 2010, Yunus criticised the IPO; in a debate with SKS founder Vikram Akula during the Clinton Global Initiative meeting, he said, "Microcredit is not about exciting people to make money off the poor. That's what you're doing. That's the wrong message completely." Calculations of actual interest rate vary, but one estimate puts average Grameen rates at about a 23% interest rate (comparable to the inflation rate). At the same time the organisation enjoyed a tax-free status for a period of several years which now has been removed.

Sympathizers of Yunus allege that the government of Bangladesh is exploiting this "moral crisis around microcredit" to oust Yunus.

Though Grameen Bank was quickly cleared by the Norwegian government of all allegations surrounding misused or misappropriated funds in December 2010, in March 2011 the Bangladeshi government launched a three-month investigation of all Grameen Bank's activities. This inquiry prevented Muhammad Yunus from participating in the World Economic Forum.

In January 2011, Yunus appeared in court in a defamation case filed by a local politician from a minor left-leaning party in 2007, complaining about a statement that Yunus made to the AFP news agency, "Politicians in Bangladesh only work for power. There is no ideology here". At the hearing, Yunus was granted bail and exempted from personal appearance at subsequent hearings.

These investigations fueled suspicion that many attacks might be politically motivated, due to difficult relations between Sheikh Hasina and Yunus since early 2007, when Yunus created his own political party, an effort he dropped in May 2007.

At 72 years old, he was 12 years beyond the legal retirement age for civil servants in Bangladesh in 2011. Government spokespersons called for Yunus to step down and declared, "We need to redefine the bank's role and bring it under closer regulation."

The government as chairman Muzammel Huq, himself a foundational figure of the Grameen Bank and one of senior managers together with Yunus of GB Research and Operations until the early 2000s. He has publicly criticised Yunus, saying, "I think he is a good man with a small heart ... He cannot give credit to anyone but himself".

On 27 January 2011, Yunus appeared in court in a food-adulteration case filed by the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) Food Safety Court, accusing him of producing an "adulterated" yogurt whose fat content was below the legal minimum. This yogurt is produced by Grameen Danone, a social business joint venture between Grameen Bank and Danone that aims to provide opportunities for street vendors who sell the yogurt and to improve child nutrition with the nutrient-fortified yogurt. According to Yunus's lawyer, the allegations are "false and baseless". At the request of Yunus's lawyers, pointing procedural irregularities and errors, this case is now considered by the High Court.

Investigation by a 2012 independent public commission examining the Grameen Bank assert that Yunus misrepresented his authority and abused his powers during his tenure in management. The report establishes that legal challenges exist for authority of the Grameen Bank to have acted as guarantor and to have forwarded credit to independent private enterprises during Dr. Yunus's tenure. The report raised specific questions relating to a) establishment and financing of GrameenPhone, a for-profit telecommunications entity initially established as a trust for the Grameen Bank borrowers together with Norwegian government owned multinational Telenor by Dr Yunus, and b) simultaneous management and operational financing of private enterprises established by Dr Yunus applying resources of the Grameen Bank. The commission also examined the legal status of the Grameen Bank and concluded that it was de jure public i.e. government entity, of which incompetent oversight by the state and (potentially unwitting) misrepresentation by Dr. Yunus in past resulted in the popular perception of the private ownership. The commission report refers to obstruction of commission investigations by current Grameen Bank management, representatives of Telenor, the Government of Bangladesh, and by partisans of Dr. Yunus. Full implications of the report are thus far not closely examined in either state-controlled elements of Bangladeshi media, or by pro-Yunus press releases, where these implicate Dr Yunus as at least accessory to corruption at the nexus of the Bangladeshi public-commercial establishment, in collusion with other parties.

Microfinance has been criticised in the foreign media. The Guardian (UK) asked whether microfinance was a 'neoliberal fairytale'. The article pointed out criticisms including that most loans are not used to create small businesses, but instead 'consumption smoothing'.

The trial of Muhammad Yunus is the series of trials launched by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh against Muhammad Yunus. The former put the latter on trial in 2010 and ultimately removed him from Grameen Bank, citing that too old to run the Bank which he founded in 1983. In 2013, he was put on trial for a second time because he had supposedly received earnings without the necessary permission from the government, including his Nobel Peace Prize earnings and the royalties from his book sales. The article claims that this series of trials against Yunus has puzzled billions of people around the world, from the 8.3 million underprivileged women of Grameen Bank to US President Barack Obama. Likening Hasina's political vendetta against Yunus to a modern-day replay of the conflict between Archimedes and General Marcellus, the article predicts that the " banker to the poor" may face a fate similar to the father of mathematics for asking Hasina not to disturb the Grameen Bank. Vikas Bajaj wrote in the Taking Note editorial blog of The New York Times on 7 November 2013:

The government of Bangladesh has played its trump card in its long-running campaign against Grameen Bank and its founder Muhammad Yunus. Last week, legislators passed a law that effectively nationalizes the bank, which pioneered the idea of making small loans to poor women, by wresting control of it from the 8.4 million rural women that own a majority of its shares.

For many years, Yunus remained a follower of Hasina's father, Sheikh Mujib, the founding father of Bangladesh. While teaching at Middle Tennessee State University, Yunus founded the Bangladesh Citizen's Committee (BCC), as a response to West Pakistan's aggression against Bangladesh and its leader Sheikh Mujib. After the outbreak of the war of liberation, the BCC selected Yunus to become editor of its newly published Bangladesh News Letter. Inspired by the birth of Bangladesh in 1971, Yunus returned home in 1972, to help Mujib rebuild the nation shattered by a long and bloody war. The relationship did not end after Mujib's death. Yunus maintained a professional relationship with Mujib's daughter, Hasina. Yunus appointed Hasina-along with US first lady Hillary Clinton-as co-chair of a microcredit summit held 2-4 February 1997. At this event, 50 heads of state and high-level officials from 137 nation-states gathered in Washington, DC, to discuss solutions to poverty. At this macroevent for microcredit, Hasina had nothing but praise for her fatherly figure. In her statement she praised,"the outstanding work done by Professor Yunus and the Grameen Bank he founded.. . . The success of the Grameen Bank has created optimism about the viability of banks engaged in extending micro-credit to the poor. The inaugural ceremony of Grameen Phone, the largest telephone service in Bangladesh, took place at Hasina's office on 26 March 1997. Using Grameen Phone, Hasina made the first call to Thorbjorn Jagland, the then-Norwegian prime minister. When her conversation ended with Jagland, she received another call, this one from Laily Begum, a Grameen telephone employee. However, this long relationship was doomed in 2007 after Yunus disclosed his intention to form a political party, Nagorik Shakti

The government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina waged a destructive campaign against Grameen and its founder, Muhammad Yunus. The New York Times reports, " Her actions appear to be retaliation for Mr. Yunus's announcement in 2007 that he would seek public office, even though he never went through with his plans". According to Times of India, one other factor contributed to her brash decision against Yunus: the Nobel Peace Prize

Hasina thought that the Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize Committee would give her the prize for signing a peace treaty, the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) in 1997. On 9 March, Attorney General Mahbubey Alam revealed the government's attitude when he said, "Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina should have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize..." He went on to challenge the wisdom of the Nobel committee for not awarding the prize to his master, Hasina, for the CHT accord.

On 11 January 2007, Army General Moeen U Ahmed staged a military coup. Meanwhile, Yunus turned down his request to become the nation's fourth Chief Advisor after Khaleda Zia's term ended. Yunus, however, suggested the general pick Fakhruddin Ahmed for the job. Fakhruddin took office on 11 January 2007 and made it clear on his very first day that he intended not only to arrange a free and fair election but also to clean up corruption. While Khalada and Hasina criticised Fakruddin and claimed that it was not his job to clean up corruption, Yunus expressed his satisfaction. In an interview with the AFP news agency, Yunus remarked that politicians in Bangladesh only work for money, saying, "There is no ideology here." Hasina had a harsh reaction to Yunus' comments, calling him a "usurer who has not only failed to eradicate poverty but has also nurtured poverty." This was Hasina's first public statement against Yunus. One could make an analogy between Yunus' involvement as a nonpolitician and the role that Czech writer Václav Havel played in his country after the overthrow of the Communist regime. Later Yunus announced the name of this prospective political party, Nagorik Shakti (Citizen's Power), saying he had a mission to enter the political arena in his nation in hope of changing its identity from "bottomless basket" to "rising tiger." However, on 3 May, Yunus published a third open letter and put his political ambitions to rest.

Bangladesh government launched the first trial against Yunus in December 2010, one month after the release of Caught in Micro Debt, a documentary by Tom Heinemann. Screened on Norwegian television on 30 November 2010, the film broadcast the allegation that Yunus stashed approximately $100 million in 1996 into Grameen Kalyan, a sister company of Grameen Bank. however, Yunus denied the allegations. After completing a full investigation, the Norwegian government found Yunus innocent. However, Prime Minister Hasina used the situation as to increase sustained attacks on Yunus: these included claims that Yunus' age means he is too old to run the bank, Grameen has created companies unlawfully, and the bank operates as an organ of the government.[clarification needed ] The bank has denied all illegalities, arguing, among other things, that age limits do not apply in this case since Grameen, like BRAC, is a special bank. Yunus has also become subject to legal harassment over three criminal cases. A criminal defamation case was filed against Yunus for criticising politicians in 2007. A food inspector filed another case against Yunus, alleging that yogurt manufactured by the Grameen-Danone was adulterated. The final blow came on 3 March 2011. Bangladesh Bank informed Grameen in a letter that Yunus had been removed from Grameen, citing that he was older than the mandatory retirement age of 60, even though nine of the bank's directors-who were elected by 8.3 million Grameen Bank borrowers-allowed him to stay on the job after he had crossed that threshold. Backed by nine boards of directors, 22 thousand employees, and 8.3 million Grameen borrowers, Yunus defied the government order, returned to Grameen's headquarters in Dhaka, and lodged an appeal at Dhaka High Court against the decision. However, Justice Mohammad Momtazuddin Ahmed and Justice Gobinda Chandra Tagore delivered the verdict against Yunus, claiming that Yunus' posting as the MD of Grameen since 1999 was illegal as he had reached the age of 60 by then. However, Yunus still did not lose faith in the justice system. Backed by international leaders (e.g., Hillary and Bill Clinton), national leaders (e.g., Sir Fazle Hasan Abed) and 8.3 million Grameen borrowers, Yunus filed an appeal in Bangladesh Supreme Court against the High Court's verdict. The full bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice ABM Khairul Haque heard the appeal on 15 March and delivered the verdict which upheld Yunus removal by government.

On 2 August 2012, Sheikh Hasina's approved a draft of "Grameen Bank Ordinance 2012" to increase government control over the bank. Currently, that power resides with the bank's directors-consisting of nine poor women-who were elected by 8.3 million Grameen borrowers. Hasina also ordered a fresh investigation into the activities and financial transactions of Yunus in his later years as managing director of Grameen, but people see the move as nothing more than an attempt to destroy his image. The prime minister also alleged that Yunus had received his earnings without the necessary permission from the government, including his Nobel Peace Prize earnings and the royalties from his books. On 4 October 2013, Bangladesh's cabinet has approved the draft of a new law that will give the country's central bank closer control over Grameen Bank, raising the stakes in a long-running dispute with the pioneering microlender. The Grameen Bank Act 2013 was approved at a cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Thursday. It was passed by parliament on 7 November 2013, and replaced the Grameen Bank Ordinance, the law that underpinned the creation of Grameen Bank as a specialised microcredit institution in 1983. The government new plan is to break Grameen into 19 pieces. The New York Times reports:

Since then, the government has started an investigation into the bank and is now planning to take over Grameen - a majority of whose shares are owned by its borrowers - and break it up into 19 regional lenders.

In 1967, while Yunus attended Vanderbilt University, he met Vera Forostenko, a student of Russian literature at Vanderbilt University and daughter of Russian immigrants to Trenton, New Jersey, United States. They were married in 1970. Yunus's marriage with Vera ended within months of the birth of their baby girl, Monica Yunus, in 1979 Chittagong, as Vera returned to New Jersey claiming that Bangladesh was not a good place to raise a baby. Monica became an operatic soprano based in New York City. Yunus later married Afrozi Yunus, who was then a researcher in physics at Manchester University. She was later appointed as a professor of physics at Jahangirnagar University. Their daughter Deena Afroz Yunus was born in 1986.

Yunus's brother Muhammad Ibrahim is a former professor of physics at the University of Dhaka and the founder of The Center for Mass Education in Science (CMES), which brings science education to adolescent girls in villages. His other brother Muhammad Jahangir (d. 2019) was a television presenter and a social activist in Bangladesh.

The Yunus Centre, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, is a think tank for issues related to social business, working in the field of poverty alleviation and sustainability. It is 'aimed primarily at promoting and disseminating Professor Yunus' philosophy, with a special focus on social business' and currently chaired by Prof. Muhammad Yunus.

Yunus, Muhammad (1974). Three Farmers of Jobra. Department of Economics, Chittagong University.

-- (1976). Planning in Bangladesh: Format, Technique, and Priority, and Other Essays; Rural Studies Project, Department of Economics. Chittagong University.

--; Isalama, Saiyada Manajurula; Rahman, Arifa (1991). Jorimon and Others: Faces of Poverty. Grameen Bank.

-- (1994). Grameen Bank, as I See it. Grameen Bank.

Yunus, Muhammad, Moingeon, Bertrand and Laurence Lehmann-Ortega (2010), "Building Social Business Models: Lessons from the Grameen Experience", April-June, vol 43, number 2-3, Long Range Planning, pp. 308-325

-- (2017). A World of Three Zeroes: the new economics of zero poverty, zero unemployment, and zero carbon emissions. Scribe Publications.

In 2006, awarded Nobel Peace Prize for his finance work.

Chosen by Wharton School of Business in Philadelphia as one of The 25 Most Influential Business Persons of the Past 25 Years, covered in a PBS documentary.

In 2006, Time magazine ranked him as one of the top 12 business leaders, including him among "60 years of Asian Heroes."

In 2008, Yunus was voted 2nd on the list of Top 100 Public Intellectuals in an open online poll conducted by Prospect Magazine (UK) and Foreign Policy (United States).

In 2009, Yunus was awarded the Golden Biatec Award, the highest award bestowed by Slovakia's Informal Economic Forum Economic Club, for individuals who exhibit economic, social, scientific, educational and cultural accomplishments in the Slovak Republic.

1. ^ Yunus, Muhammad (14 October 2003). গিরেবর উপকাের লােগ োদেখ বਗ਼ োলাক অামােদর বઘাংেক টাকা জমা রাখেত এিগেয় এেসেছ ড় মઓহামઅদ ইউনકস. Prothom Alo (Interview) (in Bengali). Interviewed by Rahman, Matiur. Dhaka. Archived from the original on 12 October 2007.

2. ^ "The Graduate Program in Economic Development - Vanderbilt University ...". 11 December 2012. Archived from the original on 11 December 2012.

3. ^ Yunus to receive Nichols-Chancellor's Medal Archived 18 June 2008 at the Wayback Machine, Vanderbilt News, 12 March 2007; Retrieved: 9 September 2007

4. ^ Yunus, Muhammad; Jolis, Alan (2003). Banker to the Poor: micro-lending and the battle against world poverty. New York: Public Affairs. pp. 20-29. ISBN 978-1-58648-198-8.

5. ^ Yunus, Muhammad; Jolis, Alan (2003). Banker to the Poor: micro-lending and the battle against world poverty. New York: PublicAffairs hc. pp. 46-49. ISBN 978-1-58648-198-8.

6. ^ "About Grameenphone". Grameenphone. 16 November 2006. Archived from the original on 10 August 2007. Grameenphone is now the leading telecommunications service provider in the country with more than 10 million subscribers as of November 2006.

7. ^ Clinton, Bill (2004). My Life: The Presidential Years. New York: Vintage Books. p. 329. ISBN 978-0-375-41457-2. Muhammad Yunus should have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics years ago.

8. ^ Sydney Peace Prize recipients, Sydney Peace Prize Foundation website; Retrieved: 9 September 2007

9. ^ Mustafa, Sabir (5 April 2007). "Bangladesh at a crossroads". BBC News. At first glance, the current state of Bangladesh appears to be a paradox: a country under a state of emergency, but where the general public seem quite content.

10. ^ High-Level Commission on Health Employment and Economic Growth - Commissioners World Health Organization.

11. ^ শেখ হাসিনার প্রতিহিংসার শিকার ড. ইউনূস. The Daily Sangram (in Bengali). Archived from the original on 9 July 2015.

12. ^ প্রধানমন্ত্রী শেখ হাসিনার হিংসা আর ভয়ের কারণই ড. ইউনূসের সাথে দন্দ্বঃ টাইমস অব ইন্ডিয়া [Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's jealousy and fear is the reason. Doubts with Yunus: The Times of India]. Amader Shomoy (in Bengali). Archived from the original on 23 September 2013.

13. ^ Bari, R. (2011). Grameen Social Business Model: A Manifesto for Proletariat Revolution. AuthorHouse. p. 158. ISBN 9781468565652.

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Muhammad Yunus ( Bengali: মুহাম্মদ ইউনূস; born 28 June 1940) is a Bangladeshi social entrepreneur, banker, economist, and civil society leader who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for founding the Grameen Bank and pioneering the concepts of microcredit and microfinance. These loans are given to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans.

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Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

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When mysterious letters start arriving on his doorstep, Harry Potter has never heard of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

They are swiftly confiscated by his aunt and uncle.

Then, on Harry's eleventh birthday, a strange man bursts in with some important news: Harry Potter is a wizard and has been awarded a place to study at Hogwarts.

And so the first of the Harry Potter adventures is set to begin.

Publishers:
UK Print - Bloomsbury
US Print - Scholastic
eBook - Pottermore
Digital Audiobook - Pottermore
UK Illustrated - Bloomsbury
US Illustrated - Scholastic
UK MinaLima edition - Bloomsbury
US MinaLima edition - Scholastic

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Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - J.K. Rowling

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Autem tantas scripserit id eum. Consul vocibus et vix, sed iusto paulo omnium ex, dicit tation ut vel.