Yunus, the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner, founded a banking system 30 years ago to lend small amounts of money to the rural poor in Bangladeshi villages. Most of the low-interest microloans go to women, who use them to start their own profit-making enterprises, mainly in agriculture, crafts, or services.

Grameen Bank now has 2,422 branches, employs more than 20,000 people, and has loaned more than $6 billion since its founding. Borrowers own most of the equity in the bank. The company has been profitable in all but three years since it was founded.

Key takeaway: Yunus imagined what would happen if a bank extended credit to those people who would never traditionally receive it. In the process, he created a system that empowered the poor by helping them become entrepreneurs.