Who is Muhammad Yunus?

• Yunus is the founder of Grameen Bank, known as the ‘Bank of the Poor’.
• In 2006, both the Bangladeshi economist and the institution he founded received the Nobel Peace Prize.

As part of Global Entrepreneurship Day, celebrated on 16 April, we are going to learn about some of the leading figures in this field, such as Peter F. Drucker.

However, in this article we are going to focus on a different branch, specifically social entrepreneurship. And within this category, we will look at the Bangladeshi Muhammad Yunus, known as the ‘banker to the poor’.

Although we will focus on Yunus’ work as an economist and his connection to social entrepreneurship, it should be noted that he also served as interim head of government of Bangladesh from August 2024 to 17 February 2026.

Muhammad Yunus’s origins and education

Muhammad Yunus was born on 28 June 1940 in the village of Batua in the Chittagong District, now part of Bangladesh but then part of the British Empire. He is the third of fourteen siblings.

His family’s move to the populous Chittagong, coupled with his father’s comfortable financial position as a jeweller, allowed him to study at the city’s Collegiate School. He was later able to travel abroad (to West Pakistan, India and Canada) thanks to his involvement in the Boy Scouts.

He later enrolled at the University of Dhaka, where he obtained a degree in economics in 1961.

Stay in the United States

After working as an assistant, he started his first private business, a small packaging factory, before obtaining a PhD in economics in 1969 from Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, United States, where he was accepted thanks to a scholarship.

He then moved to Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro as an assistant professor.

It was precisely from a distance, while living in the United States, that he experienced the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War, in which the country proclaimed its independence from Pakistan thanks, among other things, to the support of India.

A year after Bangladesh’s independence, he returned to his homeland where he founded the so-called ‘Bank of the Poor’ and for which he would achieve worldwide fame.

Grameen Bank

The creation of Grameen Bank (grameen means ‘rural’ or ‘village’ in Bengali) and the promotion of microcredit for people without resources revolutionised the fight against poverty.

It is a model of social entrepreneurship that seeks to solve social problems such as lack of resources, malnutrition and shortage of drinking water through sustainable businesses that reinvest their profits.

Muhammad Yunus’ project began in 1976 as a pilot scheme and became official in 1983.

This institution is considered a pioneer in microcredit for impoverished people, mainly in rural areas, with a particular impact on women.

Loans for small businesses are also based on trust and responsibility, without the need for physical collateral. This bank functions as a community entity specialising in development.

Nobel Peace Prize in 2006

In 2006, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Yunus and the Grameen Bank, an award that in its first edition in 1901 was divided equally between Jean Henry Dunant ‘for his humanitarian efforts to help wounded soldiers and create international understanding’ and Frédéric Passy “for his lifelong work in favour of international peace conferences, diplomacy and arbitration”.

The creation of this award was influenced by Bertha von Suttner, a peace activist and friend of Alfred Nobel, who also received this award in 1905.

But returning to a century later, in the 2006 edition, the Bangladeshi banker and economist received it together with Grameen Bank for ‘their efforts to generate economic and social development from the bottom up’.

In his acceptance speech, Yunus explained that ‘by defining “entrepreneur” in a broader way’, it is possible to ‘solve many of the unresolved social and economic problems within the free market’.

He illustrated this idea as follows: ‘Suppose that an entrepreneur, instead of having a single source of motivation (such as maximising profits), now has two sources of motivation, which are mutually exclusive but equally compelling: a) maximising profits and b) doing good for people and the world.’

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