When she launched the world’s first stock exchange for social enterprises, Durreen Shahnaz started more than a new financial system; she sparked a movement.
Defiant optimism — the stubborn belief that systems that enrich the few can be transformed for the good of the many — requires an indomitable spirit. In this book, The Defiant Optimist, Shahnaz illuminates what investing in those excluded from networks of power and opportunity requires. From growing up with constrained life chances to working as the first Bangladeshi woman on Wall Street to becoming a global leader in impact investing, Shahnaz takes the readers on a mesmerising journey of innovation, compassion, and enterprise.
Durreen Shahnaz elaborates on her tours to the villages in Bangladesh where she helps women entrepreneurs learn to proudly sign their names and on visits to venture capitalists who walk past her to shake her male employees’ hands. Changing how systems work and who they work for isn’t for the faint of heart but The Defiant Optimist offers strategies for placing women and the under-served at the heart of such systems.