Freeing Up Capital

Muhammad Yunus, Grameen Bank

Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank, never aspired to work as a banker. While he was teaching economics in Bangladesh, his country was in the middle of a famine. After speaking to many small business owners, Yunus realized that these small businesses could not get access to fair loans to start their own enterprises. His idea was to start a microlending program to free the poor entrepreneurs from usury and give them access to the capital they needed to get started.