Who We Are: Leadership

Founder & Chairperson’s Message

One of BRAC’s core founding beliefs is the sharing of knowledge. Over the past four decades of work, we have accumulated much insight into the various facets of poverty and how they interact in differing contexts. From our initial work in Bangladesh, and, more recently, Afghanistan and Southern Sudan, we have gained first-hand knowledge on operating in post-conflict environments. Our experience responding to the large-scale disasters that frequently plague Bangladesh have given us the confidence to explore new approaches to disaster preparedness and management. Working across varying geographies and climates has provided invaluable insight into agricultural innovation. BRAC’s new global website has been designed to showcase these learnings, so that they may be shared across a wide audience and therefore utilized and cultivated. Wherever possible, we have tried to avoid the technical and show the human faces of the facts through real life stories illustrated with pictures, video and other interactive media.

It is my hope that our users will be able to leave these pages with not just increased information and knowledge, but also an increased understanding of BRAC as an entity as well as a development model. But most of all, I hope that the large and diverse audience we are able to reach through the unbounded realm of the web will read our stories and find through them a growing sense of optimism in the human potential to bring about lasting change in the human condition.

I welcome you to use this site as a portal through which to join us in our global campaign against poverty.

Fazle Hasan Abed
Founder and Chairperson  

Leadership Bios

• Fazle Hasan Abed, Founder & Chairperson, BRAC - Born in Bangladesh in 1936, Abed was educated in Dhaka and Glasgow Universities. The 1971 Liberation War of Bangladesh had a profound effect on Abed, then in his thirties, a professional accountant who was holding a senior Corporate Executive position at Shell Oil. The war dramatically changed the direction of his life: he left his job and went to London to devote himself to Bangladesh's War of Independence. There, Abed helped initiate a campaign called "Help Bangladesh" to organize funds to raise awareness about the war in Bangladesh. The war over, Abed returned to the newly independent Bangladesh to find the economy of his country in ruins. Millions of refugees, who had sought shelter in India during the war, started trekking back into the country. Their relief and rehabilitation called for urgent efforts. Abed decided to initiate his own, by setting up BRAC to rehabilitate 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. He directed his policy toward helping the poor develop their capacity to manage and control their own destiny. Thus, BRAC's primary objectives emerged as alleviation of poverty and empowerment of the poor. Under Abed’s leadership, in the span of only three decades, BRAC grew to become the largest development organization in the world in terms of the scale and diversity of its interventions.
  
  Mr. Abed has received numerous national and international awards for his achievements in leading BRAC, including the David Rockefeller Bridging Leadership Award (2008), the Inaugural Clinton Global Citizen Award (2007), the Henry R. Kravis Prize in Leadership (2007), the Palli Karma Sahayak Foundation (PKSF) Award for Lifetime Achievement in Social Development and Poverty Alleviation (2007), Gates Award for Global Health (2004), UNDP Mahbub ul Haq Award for Outstanding Contribution in Human Development (2004), Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneurship Award (2002), Olof Palme Award (2001), UNICEF’s Maurice Pate Award (1992) and the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership (1980). BRAC has also been awarded the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize (2008), which is the world’s largest humanitarian prize, as well as the Swadhinata Puroshkar (2007), the highest state award in Bangladesh. Abed is recognized by Ashoka as one of the “global greats” and is a founding member of its prestigious Global Academy for Social Entrepreneurship. He has also received several honorary degrees including Doctorate of Law from Columbia University (2008) and Doctorate of Humane Letters from Yale University, USA (2007).
   

• Mahabub Hossain, Ph.D., Executive Director, BRAC - Mahabub Hossain is an internationally renowned development economist. Prior to joining BRAC, Dr. Hossain was the Head of the Social Sciences Division and Programme Leader, Rainfed Ecosystems Programme of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Philippines. He was also the Director General of Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) from 1989 to 1992. Dr. Hossain, is known for his substantial contributions to research on development economics and agriculture policy in South and Southeast Asia.
  
  Dr. Hossain obtained his Masters in Economics in 1969 from Dhaka University and his PhD in Economics in 1977 from Cambridge University, UK. Throughout his distinguished career, he has authored/co-authored eleven books and research monographs and contributed more than 140 papers in refereed journals and edited books. He was awarded the first Gold Medal from the Bangladesh Agricultural Economist Association (in 1985) in recognition of outstanding contribution to understanding the operation of rural economy in Bangladesh.
  
  Dr. Hossain, a Bangladeshi national, was born in 1945 in Nadia, West Bengal, India.
   

• Muhammad A (Rumee) Ali, Managing Director, BRAC Enterprises - Muhammad A. (Rumee) Ali is a pioneer in the Bangladeshi banking sector. Prior to joining in BRAC, he served as the Deputy Governor of Bangladesh Bank. With his appointment as Country Head and General Manager of Grindlays Bangladesh in March 1997, Mr. Ali became the first Bangladeshi to head a major international bank in Bangladesh. In July 2000, following the takeover of ANZ Grindlays by Standard Chartered Bank, Ali was appointed the CEO of the Standard Chartered Group in Bangladesh, heading both Standard Chartered Bank and Standard Chartered Grindlays Bank. His banking experience includes stints in India, United Kingdom and Australia. Mr. Ali was elected a Fellow of the Bangladesh Institute of Bankers in 2001.
  
  Mr. Ali is a director of the boards of several organisations including the Governing Board of PKSF and is also a member of the Global Steering Committee of the ‘Performance Based Grants Initiative’ of the International Finance Corporation. He is a member of the Better Business Forum and the Technical Advisory Committee of Bangladesh Investment Climate Fund. At present he is the Vice Chairman of Bangladesh Association of Banks. He received a number of awards including C. R. Das and Atish Dipanker Gold Medal for Banking in 1995 and 1999 and ‘CEO of the Year’ awarded by Junior Chamber International, Bangladesh and Bangladesh Management Institute in 2000 and 2001 respectively. Mr. Ali received his B.A. (Honours) and M.A. in Economics from Dhaka University and was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 1951.
   

• Md. Aminul Alam, Executive Director, International Programmes, BRAC - Md. Aminul Alam is the Executive Director, BRAC International Programmes. Mr. Alam has had more than 35 years of in-depth experience at BRAC - with 18 years at director level. He first started working at BRAC at the field level, as programme organiser, in 1975. Mr. Alam has extensive and profound understanding of the practical realities of implementing and scaling up effective, low-cost development programmes in Bangladesh and, recently, in other countries. He is currently overseeing the establishment and expansion of BRAC's programmes in developing countries outside Bangladesh and is directly responsible for the success of nine country programmes in Asia and Africa. Mr. Alam was born in 1949. He completed a Masters in Physics from University of Dhaka.
   

• Directors
  

  • Tania Zaman, Director Chairperson's Office (Chief of Staff)

  • Imran Matin, Deputy Executive Director, International Programmes, BRAC

  • Ahmed Najmul Hussain, Director, Procurement, Estates & Management Services

  • Anna Minj, Director, Social Development Programme

  • Babar Kabir, Director, Water, Sanitation & Hygiene (WASH) Programme and Disaster, Environment & Climate Change (DECC)

  • Erum Mariam, Director, BRAC University Institute for Education and Development

  • Faruque Ahmed, Director, Health Programme

  • Faustina Pereira, Director, Human Rights and Legal Services programme

  • Ishtiaq Mohiuddin, Director, of MIS & Progoti, Microfinance

  • Kishwar S. Sayeed, Director, Human Resource Division

  • Manzoor Hasan, Director, BRAC University Institute of Governance Studies

  • S K Sarkar, Director, Administration and Risk Management

  • S N Kairy, Director, Finance & Accounts

  • Safiqul Islam, Director, Education Programme

  • Saieed Bakth Mozumder, Director, Tea Estates

  • Shabbir Ahmed Chowdhury, Director, Microfinance Programme

  • Sheepa Hafiza, Director, Training, Advocacy and Gender

  • Syeda Sarwat Abed, Director, BRAC University Centre for Languages

  • Tamara Abed, Director, Aarong, BRAC Dairy & Food Project and Ayesha Abed Foundation

  • Tanwir Rahman, Director Finance, BRAC International
     

• Heads of Country Programmes
  

  • Fazlul Hoque, Country Program Coordinator, Afghanistan

  • Muhammed Faridur Rahman, Country Manager, Sri Lanka

  • Md. Sadequl Islam, CEO, Pakistan o

  • Hossain Ishrath Adib, Country Manager, Tanzania

  • Khondoker Ariful Islam, Country Program Coordinator, Uganda

  • Md. Abu Bakar Siddique, Country Manager, Southern Sudan

  • M A Salam, Country Manager, Liberia

  • Shah Alam, Country Manager, Sierra Leone
     

• Susan Davis, President & CEO, BRAC USA - Ms. Davis is a thought leader in international development and civil society innovation. She is a founder and current President & CEO of BRAC USA, a newly created organization to support BRAC’s global expansion to Africa and other countries in Asia. In addition she was a founding board member and Chair of the Grameen Foundation and is a current board member. She serves on Ashoka’s international board committee that selects Ashoka Fellows. She is also Senior Advisor to New York University’s Reynolds Program on Social Entrepreneurship. Previously she led Ashoka’s Global Academy for Social Entrepreneurship, co-founded the University Network for Social Entrepreneurship and oversaw Ashoka’s expansion to the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia. In addition she served as a Senior Advisor to the Director General of the International Labor Organization. Prior to that, she led the global advocacy group, Women's Environment & Development Organization. She has extensive micro-credit experience from her years with the Ford Foundation in Bangladesh and from her work with Women's World Banking. She also served as a funder and volunteer representative to start Ashoka Bangladesh. Earlier she was the Assistant Director of the export trading company of the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey. She serves on numerous other boards including Project Enterprise, Sirleaf Market Women’s Fund, and African Women’s Development Fund USA. She is on Mary Robinson’s Advisory Council of Realizing Rights: the Ethical Globalization Initiative and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She was educated at Georgetown, Harvard and Oxford universities.
   

• Sandra Kabir, Executive Director, BRAC UK – Ms. Kabir has worked in development in various capacities since 1976 with donor agencies, international and national NGOs. She has worked predominantly in the areas of sexual and reproductive health and rights and women’s development. She was awarded the international STIMEZO Prize in 1988 for her contribution to making abortion safe worldwide. Sandra established the Bangladesh Women’s Health Coalition in 1979 and played a major role in the creation of EL TALLER (a global NGO movement), among other achievements. Sandra was elected Councillor of the London Borough of Brent until May 2006.