Fortune Magazine: Abed placed on greatest leaders' list
Brac Founder and Chairperson Sir Fazle Hasan Abed has been selected as one of “The World's 50 Greatest Leaders” by Fortune magazine.
Fortune lauded Abed's role in rebuilding Bangladesh after some 10 million refugees returned home following the Liberation War in 1971.
A former corporate executive, Abed set up Brac in 1972 as a relief operation agency to help the country recover from war.
Later, the organisation initiated a programme to find ways to tackle poverty, empower women and provide health and education services across the country. It has now become the world's largest nongovernmental organisation.
According to the Fortune's fourth annual ranking of World's Greatest Leaders, Abed was ranked 37th, while Chicago Cubs General Manager Theo Epstein was ranked at the top of the list.
Jack ma, executive chairman of Alibaba group, was ranked second in the list while Pope Francis, head of the Roman Catholic Church, was placed third.
Fortune in a message on Thursday said, “Brac's fingerprint includes microfinance; its program has given out $1.6 billion in loans to more than 5 million Bangladeshis -- and education, where it has graduated over 11 million students.”
Abed was also named in the magazine's list of the World's 50 Greatest Leaders in 2014.
He has been honoured with numerous national and international awards. Thomas Francis, Jr. Medal in Global Public Health (2016), World Food Prize (2015), Trust Women Hero Award (2014), Spanish Order of Civil Merit (2014), Leo Tolstoy International Gold Medal (2014) and CEU Open Society Prize (2013) are only a few to name.
“In business, government, philanthropy and the arts, and all over the globe, these men and women are transforming the world and inspiring others to do the same,” said an article by Fortune, a New York-based multinational business magazine.
Fortune highlighted some features of the great leaders who acknowledge reality and offer hope, bring followers physically together and build bridges among people and communities.
“As the acerbity of political discourse threatens to infect the whole culture, the best leaders stay refreshingly open to other views, engaging opponents constructively rather than waging war,” it added.
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