The Global Visionaries

As the world forges ahead after a devastating economic meltdown, Fortune is set out to find trailblazers whose innovative contributions to emerging markets and developing nations are as significant as they are universal.


Victor and William Fung
Industry: Consumer Goods
Title: Chairman and CEO, respectively
Organization: Li & Fung Group

Dubbed the last "Great Chinese Dynasty" by some, brothers Victor and William Fung have helmed their Hong Kong-based sourcing company, Li & Fung Group, since 1973. Over time, it has transformed from a traditional family company into a vast enterprise of 80 offices in 44 countries around the world, giving job opportunities to hundreds of thousands of workers in over 30,000 factories in Asia, Europe, the Americas, and Africa.

And the results of the company's expansion and acquisitions are plain to see. As one of the world's largest producers of consumer goods, they're responsible for making everything from L'Oreal cosmetics to hardware bathroom faucets.

"What my brother and I did was take a Hong Kong-only base to Taiwan, Korea, and then Southeast Asia," William Fung told Fortune. "We followed the globalization of manufacturing of consumer goods, which was all part of our plan to professionalize the family company."

Despite what Fung describes as the "global economic tsunami," the company still reported a net profit rise of more than 30% for 2009 thanks to smart cost cutting and it aims for $20 billion in sales for 2010

Seth Berkley
Industry: Science
Title: Epidemiologist
Organization: International Aids Vaccine Initiative

While working for the Centers for Disease Control in Uganda during the mid-1990s, Seth Berkley experienced the ravaging effects of HIV/AIDS on Kampala, the Capital City, where 18.6% of residents were infected.

"Living there, I began to see colleagues and friends die," he recalls. "I thought to myself: my god, this is our black plague." So in 1996, he shifted gears and established the International AIDS Initiative (IAVI) with the purpose of funding and sponsoring HIV vaccine efforts.

Fifteen years later, IAVI has made significant headway, even if the end goal remains somewhat elusive. IAVI has raised more than $850 million, and last fall, the organization, in conjunction with Scripps Institute, announced that researchers had found two new antibodies that could lead to a vaccine. IAVI is also currently sponsoring four clinical trials of HIV vaccine candidates in humans, as well as 8 preparatory studies for HIV vaccines in the U.S., Europe, India and Africa.


Muhammad Yunus
Industry: Economics
Title: Founder
Organization: Grameen Bank

Credit this Bangladeshi financier for essentially revolutionizing the banking systems in many third-world countries with the concept of microfinance. The financing mechanism enables low-income individuals with little-to-no financial resources to start up businesses and other ventures by lending them small amounts of money.

Yunus founded the Bangladesh-based microfinance organization, Grameen Bank, in 1976, and since then, the bank's 2,564 branches have lent over $9 billion to 8.1 million borrowers in over 10,000 villages, 97% of whom are women. In fact, approximately 97% of Bangladeshi villages receive aid through Dr.Yunus' revolutionary brainchild.

In 2006, the Norwegian Nobel Committee selected Yunus to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his work, and more recently in 2009, President Barack Obama honored Yunus with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.


Rikin Gandhi
Industry: Agriculture
Title: CEO
Organization: Digital Green

The M.I.T. grad turned aeronautical-astronautical engineer now helms the New Delhi-based Digital Green, an NGO funded in part by the Gates Foundation that teaches farmers in small rural villages the latest agricultural techniques via multimedia presentations and personal demonstrations. Currently active in four states in India, the plan is to expand to 1,200 villages total throughout South Asia and Africa within the next three years.

At least once a week, farmers gather in a small group of 15 or 20 in a common area of their village, where they view a six to eight minute instructional video, varying according to region and state, that is projected onto the side of a building. The lessons are also supplemented with more in-person group demonstrations.

Gandhi says his new media take is 10 times more effective per dollar spent in converting farmers to better farming practices than more traditional approaches. It also transforms farming into a communal activity.

"Normally, these practices happen in isolation," Gandhi explains. "A farmer adopts this practice here or this practice there. But it's really seeing these farmers integrate many of these practices together and really seeing a change brought about in their lives and the lives of their whole family that makes this first-hand experience an experience to have."


Valerie Gauthier
Industry: Education
Title: Associate Dean
Organization: HEC Paris

When Valerie Gauthier began her tenure as Associate Dean at HEC Paris in 2002, her first goal was to revamp the MBA program's curriculum. She applied the concept of "savoir relier," or making connections, to the program, placing a heavy emphasis in areas like organization behavior, HR management, negotiation and communication.

Gauthier also led initiatives like the Women in Leadership program, which aims to provide alumni mentoring and sensitize students to the unique challenges women face in the workplace.

"It's been incredibly powerful in giving these women the will to go out, invite more women to participate and to play a significant role," says Gauthier. "In that sense, we're creating momentum, a willingness and a desire for the students to do the same."

As a result, HEC Paris now lays claim to the most diverse b-school population in the West: about 35% of students come from Asia, 10% from Latin America, and the number of female students has nearly doubled from 16% to 30%. So not only is HEC Paris more well-rounded, but so are its students and arguably, the business leaders of tomorrow.


Lakshmi Mittal
Industry: Athletics
Title: Founder
Organization: Mittal Champions Trust

Considered the richest man in Britain with an estimated net worth of over 22 billion pounds ($32 billion), the India-born, Britain-based CEO of steelmaker ArcelorMittal also plays a pivotal role in India's ongoing quest for Olympic gold.

According to Mittal, the goal of the Mittal Champions Trust is to identify, support and enhance the performance of talented up-and-coming Indian athletes in six sports: track and field, shooting, wrestling, archery, boxing, and squash. The trust started in 2005 when Mittal was both inspired by and disappointed with India's single-medal win at the 2004 Athens Olympics.

Now, the trust, which started with an initial funding of $9 million, supports over 60 Indian athletes, including rifle shooter Abhinav Bindra, who won the country's first Olympic gold medal in over 25 years at the 2008 Beijing Olympic games. The next goal? Bring home at least five medals from the 2012 Olympics in London.


Indrani Medhi
Industry: Technology
Title: Associate Researcher
Organization: Technology for Emerging Markets Group, Microsoft India

While more than 1.8 billion people currently use a PC, at least 2 billion more remain unable to due to illiteracy. With the development of text-free User Interface (UI) however, Indrani Medhi believes her work provides a viable solution that will enable such members of developing countries access and benefit from the computer.

"The goal of our research is to make assistance-free and useful interaction possible for any first-time, non-literate user of a PC or mobile phone," she says. To achieve that, Medhi studied over 400 low-income subjects and spent over 450 hours in Indian slums, Filipino fishing villages, and South African farms. To combat the subjects' discomfort around technology, her UIs employ hand-drawn graphics with voiced annotations in the local language as well as looped explanatory videos.

"There was a sense of pride among subjects at having handled a PC themselves even before their children had," recalls Medhi. "Most people were thrilled to hear the computer speak in their native language and had their fears allayed when they saw graphics instead of text, so much so that they would ask us when these applications would be available for them to use."


Zhao Xiaogang
Industry: Transportation
Title: Chairman and CEO
Organization: China South Locomotive and Rolling Stock Corporation (CSR)

As the man behind China's largest rail maker, Xiaogang leads the construction of the Beijing-Shanghai Express Rail. Scheduled for completion in 2011, the high-speed train will connect China's political center -- Beijing -- to its economic artery -- Shanghai -- in only five hours, halving the current travel time between the country's two most populous cities.

The line will provide transportation for over 10% of China's passengers. Some 32 million Chinese who live along the new line will have access to the record-setting train, which will average a speed of 350 km/h, making it the fastest passenger rail in the world.

The Beijing-Shanghai Express will open doors for new business opportunities and improved political, economic, and social exchange. The construction of the railway reportedly costs $31.6 billion. In its first quarter report, CSR announced that net profit surged 84%, to $52 million.