Brac

Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, KCMG |

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Chairman |

Sir Fazle Hasan Abed has been elected Chairman of BRAC Bank Limited on March 7, 2013. 

Sir Fazle Hasan Abed founded the BRAC Bank in 2001 to develop inclusive banking services for the small and medium entrepreneurs’ including those in rural Bangladesh. He was the Chairman of BRAC Bank from July 2001 to April 2008. 

Sir Fazle Hasan Abed is the Founder and Chairperson of BRAC, which was established in 1972 to help the poor in the rural areas of Bangladesh. Since then BRAC has increased its presence in economic and social development, health, education, human rights and legal services, disaster management and climate change adaptation and other sectors. 

During the 1971 Liberation War of Bangladesh, Sir Abed then in his thirties, was a professional accountant holding a senior Corporate Executive position at Shell Oil Company. He left his job, moved to London and devoted himself to Bangladesh’s War of Independence. There, he helped initiate a campaign called “Help Bangladesh” to organise funds in raising awareness about the war. When the war was over, Sir Abed initiated and set up BRAC for the relief and rehabilitation of returning refugees in a remote area in northeastern Bangladesh. This work led him and BRAC to deal with the long-term task of improving living conditions of the rural poor. Thus, BRAC's primary objectives emerged as alleviation of poverty and empowerment of the poor. Under Sir Abed’s leadership, in the span of over four decades, BRAC grew to become the largest development organisation in the world in terms of the scale and diversity of its interventions. 

Sir Abed has received numerous national and international awards for his achievements in leading BRAC, including the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership (1980), UNICEF’s Maurice Pate Award (1992), Olof Palme Award (2001), Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneurship Award (2002), UNDP Mahbub ul Haq Award for Outstanding...