Irvan Kolonas
In high school, the first book to change Irvan’s worldview was “Banker to the Poor” by Muhammad Yunus. He loved Yunus’s idea of what a social business is: an organization that sells a product/service that has direct social impact not for free but for a price, to create sustainability and scale. It was also surprising for Irvan to learn that individuals facing life-threatening situations borne out of extreme poverty were often more financially credible with lower default rates than middle-class Americans. Today microfinance is well established, however thirteen years ago that concept was revolutionary. Once he understood the social and financial truths about lending to the poor, he knew it was to be his life purpose. Coming from a big business family, it has been a tough decision to decide to run a social enterprise, but he knows that Vasham is one large step towards the fulfillment of his greater purpose.