Sir Fazle Hasan Abed, Brac founder and chairperson, has been named among 50 greatest leaders in the world. He has been ranked 37 in the list prepared by 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 Sir Abed, a former corporate executive who established the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, now the world’s largest non-governmental organisation,” said the Fortune’s website. The magazine’s website also stated: “Brac’s fingerprint (projects) includes microfinance; the programme has given out $1.6bn in loans to more than 5 million – Bangladeshis - and education, where it has graduated over 11 million students.” Sir Abed is the only Bangladeshi to secure a position in this year’s list. He was ranked at 32 in the 2015 and 2014 lists. The top five positions on the list are held by Chicago Cubs’ Baseball Operations President Theo Epstein, Alibaba Group founder and Executive Chairman Jack Ma, Pope Francis, co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation - Melinda Gates and Amazon.com founder and Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos.