Sir Fazle Abed ranks 37 among world’s 50 greatest leaders

Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, a Bangladeshi social worker, the founder and chairman of BRAC, the world’s largest non-governmental organization, has been ranked 37 among world’s 50 greatest leaders, according to US-based magazine Fortune.

In 1971, Bangladesh won a brutal war for independence, and some 10 million refugees returned to a country in urgent need of rebuilding. In stepped Abed, a former corporate executive who established the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, now the world’s largest nongovernmental organization. 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.

President of Chicago Cubs’ Baseball Operations Theo Epstein named top position on the list.