Melinda French Gates
Melinda French Gates is a prominent philanthropist and former co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, one of the largest charitable organizations globally, which she helped establish in 2000. Born on August 15, 1964, in Dallas, Texas, she pursued higher education at Duke University, earning degrees in computer science and business administration. Melinda worked at Microsoft for nearly a decade before transitioning to philanthropy. Her charitable focus is primarily on improving the lives of women and children in developing countries, particularly through initiatives that enhance health care access, combat extreme poverty, and promote education and technology.
Inspired by her experiences in Africa and the stark inequalities she witnessed, she has advocated for crucial issues, including women's health and family leave policies in the U.S. In 2024, she announced her resignation from the Gates Foundation, pledging $12.5 billion toward future philanthropic efforts, particularly supporting systemic challenges faced by women and girls. Throughout her career, French Gates has received numerous accolades for her contributions, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Her work has significantly impacted global health and poverty reduction, showcasing her commitment to making a difference in the lives of underserved populations.
Melinda French Gates
Philanthropist
- Born: August 15, 1964
- Place of Birth: Dallas, Texas
Significance: Melinda French Gates served as the cochair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, one of the largest private charities in the world, from 2000 to 2024. She is committed to helping women and children in developing countries improve their lives. She previously worked at Microsoft.
Background
Melinda French Gates was born Melinda Ann French on August 15, 1964, in Dallas, Texas. Her father, Ray French, was an aerospace engineer, while her mother, Elaine Amerland, was a homemaker. Her parents valued higher education and started a rental property business to save money for their children's college tuition. French Gates, her sister, and their two brothers spent time maintaining the properties on weekends. French Gates also worked on bookkeeping for the rental business using an early Apple II computer, which fascinated her.
She attended Ursuline Academy of Dallas, a Catholic all-girls school. She was head of the drill team and graduated valedictorian. French Gates then earned a bachelor's degree in computer science from Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, in 1986 and a master's degree in business administration from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business in 1987.
After graduation, French Gates accepted a position at Microsoft as product manager, developing multimedia and interactive products. She remained with the company for nine years, working her way up the ranks to general manager of information products. She was in charge of Expedia, a budget travel website; Cinemania, an interactive movie guide; and Encarta, a digital encyclopedia. French Gates became involved in charity work while dating Microsoft founder Bill Gates, whom she married in 1994. French Gates left Microsoft a few years later to devote herself to her family and philanthropic activities.
Life's Work
The same year the Gateses married, French Gates, her husband, and her father-in-law began the William H. Gates Foundation, which focused on global health. Three years later, French Gates and her husband began the Gates Library Foundation, which aimed to bring computers and Microsoft products to every library in the United States.
The two organizations merged into the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000. The foundation aims to help people improve their lives by making global health care more accessible, reducing extreme poverty worldwide, and expanding educational opportunities and access to technology within the United States. French Gates credits a 1993 trip to Zaire, Africa, as part of the inspiration for the foundation. French Gates was affected by the terrible poverty she witnessed in the region—especially among women, who walked barefoot and whose only income was making and selling pottery. Then French Gates read a newspaper article about the diseases affecting children worldwide—diseases that rarely affect vaccinated children in the United States. She was upset that some lives seemed to matter more than others did; she wanted to help change this. She decided to dedicate her life to giving to the less fortunate.
In 2006, wealthy investor and friend Warren Buffett donated $30 billion—80 percent of his fortune—to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This donation, along with the Gateses' $29 billion endowment, set the stage for global change. One of its top priorities was to distribute vaccines to children in developing countries.
In 2016, following the 2015 founding of her company Pivotal Ventures, French Gates turned her attention to advocating for better family leave policies in the United States at the federal, state, and private levels. French Gates wanted these policies to cover more than just maternity leave. She believed that employees should be able to take time off to care for an older parent or a sick spouse.
French Gates also pledged to make contraception available to all women by 2020. She learned that women in developing countries often had no access to birth control. When she visited these countries, some women asked her to take their children because they could not afford to care for them. She believed that if these women had access to contraceptives, they could control when they became pregnant. This could help them break the cycle of poverty.
French Gates won numerous awards throughout her life. Forbes repeatedly ranked her on its world's one hundred most powerful women list. In 2016, President Barack Obama honored both French Gates and her husband with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
In 2019, French Gates published her first book, The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World. The following year, she and the Gates Foundation largely focused their attention and funding on the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused by a novel coronavirus first identified in China in late 2019. After announcing that the foundation would be devoting a significant amount of money to worldwide efforts to develop a vaccine and potential treatments early in 2020, by the end of that year, French Gates and her husband announced that the foundation was making a further commitment of $250 million to the fight against the disease, which brought its total funding amount up to that point to $1.75 billion. For French Gates, it was important that any of the scientific developments made related to COVID-19 could be taken advantage of by all people, regardless of socioeconomic standing.
Explaining that she maintained pride in the work the foundation had done but that she also wanted to refocus her philanthropic activities, French Gates announced in May 2024 that she was resigning from her post as cochair. She additionally noted that she planned to put the money agreed upon in the terms of her departure, totaling $12.5 billion, toward her future philanthropic activities. She said that she had long noticed only a tiny fraction of charitable giving benefited women's and girls' health. Furthermore, she was motivated to take action after the US Supreme Court issued a ruling that repealed the protections of Roe v. Wade and had a negative impact on women's health care in the United States. She soon began to address these needs by dedicating $1 billion toward systemic problems that girls and women face. In October, she called on nonprofits to apply for Pivotal grants.
Impact
As of 2024, French Gates believed that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation had made significant progress in reaching its goals and improving lives throughout the world. In a 2017 interview with CBS News, she said that since 1990, global poverty had been cut in half, and 122 million children's lives had been saved through immunization—both areas that the foundation heavily funded. However, she also noted that much work still needed to be done. She explained that one million babies each year die on their first day of life because of a lack of access to quality health care.
Personal Life
French Gates first met Bill Gates in 1987 at a trade show in Manhattan. She liked his sense of humor. He later asked her on a date "two weeks from next Friday." She turned him down, telling him that he lacked spontaneity. Bill Gates called her back and asked if they could get together later that night after a meeting. The couple dated for six years before becoming engaged. They married on New Year's Day in 1994. Two years later, French Gates gave birth to the couple's first child, Jennifer Katherine Gates. The couple later had a son, Rory John Gates, and another daughter, Phoebe Adele Gates. They divorced in 2021 before welcoming their first grandchild in 2023.
Bibliography
Aspan, Maria. "Only 2% of Charitable Giving Goes to Women. Can Melinda French Gates Change That?" National Public Radio, 9 Oct. 2024, www.npr.org/2024/10/09/nx-s1-5137259/melinda-french-gates-charitable-giving-women-girls-womens-health. Accessed 14 Oct. 2024.
Clifford, Catherine. "Melinda Gates: It's Time to Get Real about Breastfeeding at Work." CNBC, 3 Aug. 2017, www.cnbc.com/2017/08/03/melinda-gates-its-time-to-talk-about-breastfeeding-at-work.html. Accessed 14 Oct. 2024.
Gates, Melinda. "I Spent My Career in Technology. I Wasn't Prepared for Its Effect on My Kids." Washington Post, 24 Aug. 2017, www.washingtonpost.com/news/parenting/wp/2017/08/24/melinda-gates-i-spent-my-career-in-technology-i-wasnt-prepared-for-its-effect-on-my-kids/?utm‗term=.fa5f5d6330d2. Accessed 14 Oct. 2024.
Hempel, Jessi. "Melinda Gates Has a New Mission: Women in Tech." Wired, 28 Sept. 2016, www.wired.com/2016/09/melinda-gates-has-a-new-mission-women-in-tech. Accessed 14 Oct. 2024.
Howard, Caroline. "Bill and Melinda Gates' Foundation Injects Another $250 Million into the Battle against Covid-19." Forbes, 10 Dec. 2020, www.forbes.com/sites/carolinehoward/2020/12/10/bill-and-melinda-gates-foundation-injects-another-250-million-into-the-battle-against-covid-19/?sh=1f85cecb12d4. Accessed 14 Oct. 2024.
Howard, Caroline. "The First Woman of Women: How Melinda Gates Became the World's Most Powerful Advocate for Women and Girls." Forbes, 23 Nov. 2015, www.forbes.com/sites/carolinehoward/2015/11/23/the-first-woman-of-women-how-melinda-gates-became-the-worlds-most-powerful-advocate-for-women-and-girls/. Accessed 14 Oct. 2024.
McKay, Betsy, and Emily Glazer. "Melinda French Gates Adjusts to a New, Solo Role." The Wall Street Journal, 6 Jan. 2023, www.wsj.com/articles/melinda-french-gates-adjusts-to-a-new-solo-role-11673017870. Accessed 14 Oct. 2024.
"Melinda Gates on Making a Successful Life." CBS News, 5 Mar. 2017, www.cbsnews.com/news/melinda-gates-on-making-a-successful-life. Accessed 14 Oct. 2024.
Meyer, Lily. "'The Moment of Lift' Is More of a Whisper Than a Call to Action." Review of The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World, by Melinda Gates. NPR, 23 Apr. 2019, www.npr.org/2019/04/23/716066240/the-moment-of-lift-is-more-of-a-whisper-than-a-call-to-action. Accessed 14 Oct. 2024.
O'Connor, Clare. "Melinda Gates Invests in Getting Women into Tech, Improving Family Leave Policies." Forbes, 28 Sept. 2016, www.forbes.com/sites/clareoconnor/2016/09/28/melinda-gates-invests-in-getting-women-into-tech-improving-family-leave-policies/#775998eb2244. Accessed 14 Oct. 2024.
Singer, Peter. Famine, Affluence, and Morality. Oxford UP, 2015.
Small, Cathleen. Melinda Gates: Philanthropist and Education Advocate. Cavendish Square, 2017.
Wiley, Rob. "Melinda Gates Steps Down from Gates Foundation, Retains $12.5 Billion for Additional Philanthropy." NBC News, 13 May 2024, www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/melinda-gates-stepping-down-from-gates-foundation-rcna152001. Accessed 14 Oct. 2024.