Ron Grzywinski

Ron Grzywinski
Ron Grzywinski in Chicago in 2006.
Born	1936 Chicago, Illinois
Occupation	Banker, co-founder of ShoreBank

Ron Grzywinski is a community development banker from Chicago, and one of four founders of ShoreBank. In May 2010 he retired as chair of ShoreBank Corporation and took the position of Advisor to the Board of Directors of ShoreBank Corporation.

Ron Grzywinski was born in 1936 in Chicago's South Chicago community area on the city's south side. His banking career began at the First National Bank of Lockport, and he moved to the Hyde Park Bank in 1967. [1]

In 1973, Ron and three colleagues (Milton Davis, James Fletcher, and Mary Houghton) purchased the South Shore Bank (eventually renaming it ShoreBank) in Chicago's South Shore neighborhood to fight redlining. It was America's first community development bank, and it has grown into what is, by most accounts, the most successful community development and microfinance institution in the country. The bank's successful combination of a social mission with profitability finds it frequently cited as "doing well while doing good."[2]

In 1977, Ron was the only banker to testify in favor of the Community Reinvestment Act which required banks and thrifts meet the credit needs of the communities in which they did business, including low- and middle-income residents. Thanks in part to Ron’s testimony, it was enacted by congress later that year.

In the 1980s Ron worked in Bangladesh with Muhammad Yunus through a grant from the Ford Foundation to help design and incorporate the Grameen Bank.[3]

In 1985, he worked closely with then Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton to set up the Southern Development Bancorporation, a community development bank serving rural Arkansans.[4]