Muhammad Yunus: An Entrepreneur

Marie Monnelly.

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Enterprise Development CM361

Muhammad Yunus.

Winner of a Nobel Peace prize (Nobelprize.org 2006) and listed at number two of the “Top Global thinkers” (Foreign Policy 2009), Muhammad Yunus is a revolutionary entrepreneur, banker, economist and civil society leader. Muhammad changed social banking by helping the less privileged unleash their entrepreneurial skills. He founded the Grameen Bank, which gives loans to entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans (Grameen Bank 2014). Muhammad describes himself as a philanthropist (Muhammad Yunus 2011) and a social business leader. Muhammad has spent much of his life tackling the problem of poverty with socially focused economics. He pioneered the concepts

An entrepreneur is a person who “organizes and manages a business undertaking, assuming the risk for the sake of profit.” An entrepreneur sees an opportunity. Makes a plan. Starts the business (sba 2014). The Business Dictionary describes an entrepreneur with adjectives such as “risk taker”, “driven”, “motivated”, has a “mission”, they are “innovative”. Muhammad saw a way he could help others using his economic knowledge. From studying Muhammad Yunus and his entrepreneurial pursuit I have noticed that entrepreneurship is no longer purely business based but, it also extends to include social and political activity. Yunus was involved in social

This bank secured loans from much larger banks. In order to ensure payback they implemented a system of “solidarity groups”. They would apply for loans together, supporting and holding each other accountable for losses (Yunus 2007). This innovative system was built on trust rather than legal contacts. In addition to relieving poverty these groups also improved the social position of women in their homes and communities (Yunus, 2008). In less than six years Yunus was able to hand out thousands of micro loans and support the “self-advancement of over 28,000 villagers”, (J Kile 2010). The risk Yunus took loaning the women money had a huge impact on Yunus microfinance