Posted on January 25, 2010 - by James

Dean of Wharton on Microfinance, M. Yunus…

Each generation of business students has a prototypical hero. Past generations have revered masters of possibility: the self-made millionaire, the architect of the corporate takeover, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur.

Throughout my career, I have come to admire many different kinds of leaders, but perhaps none more than the father of microcredit, Muhammad Yunus. As founder and managing director of Bangladesh’s Grameen Bank, Prof Yunus has been lending to the poor for more than three decades, and in 2006 won the Nobel Peace Prize, which made him a global icon. In my view, no one has done more to expand our sense of what business can and should do to contribute to economic and social welfare, especially among the world’s poor.

Having long admired Prof Yunus’s work, I was eager to host him as Wharton’s MBA graduation speaker last spring. What I did not anticipate was our community’s overwhelming response to his visit. He could hardly take two steps without students rushing over to shake his hand. They were enthralled by him.

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