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Melinda French Gates, the philanthropist who pursues her own passions
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Twelve years ago, Melinda French Gates made a seemingly modest request to her then-husband, Bill: She wanted to co-author the annual letter to the charitable foundation they had co-founded. He rejected her. But he eventually agreed to include an essay by his wife alongside his letter. Two years later, she was promoted to co-author.
This week, French Gates achieved total emancipation: three years after divorcing Gates, she announced that she was cutting ties with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, whose $59.5 billion endowment and $7 billion in annual giving make it not just a whale among fish in the philanthropic world. but a true ocean in itself.
As part of a previously negotiated separation agreement, Gates will give his ex-wife $12.5 billion to pursue her own philanthropic passion: uplifting women and girls around the world. But even before this week’s news, French Gates had already emerged from her ex-husband’s shadow to become one of the most influential figures in global philanthropy.
Her growing reputation as an advocate for women has coincided with a decline in Gates’ public standing due to his association with Jeffrey Epstein, the financier who died in a Manhattan jail cell in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. (Gates regretted the meetings but said they were just to discuss a charitable endeavor.)
“I’ve been watching her since she was young and the evolution has been phenomenal,” says Diane von Furstenberg, who met French Gates at the Allen & Co technology and media conference in Sun Valley, Idaho, in the 1990s. “She was very reserved. She was very shy,” recalls von Furstenberg. “Now she is a woman in charge.”
At 59, French Gates is a single grandmother who finds herself at the head of a triumvirate of women – along with MacKenzie Scott and Laurene Powell Jobs – whose former marriages to tech billionaires have made them mega-philanthropists in their own right. A person who worked with her said this week that she and Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, were now talking about a formal philanthropic collaboration.
People who know French Gates say she is reaching the height of her powers just when the issues close to her heart — including reproductive rights — are under threat from Donald Trump’s possible return to the White House and a resurgent patriarchy. She already championed these causes within the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, says one, but “I think you’ll probably see her take more political risks now and focus more on advocacy” on such issues.
French Gates grew up in Dallas, the daughter of an aerospace engineer who worked on the Apollo missions that landed the first man on the moon. She attended the all-girls Ursuline Academy and became interested in computer programming, thanks to one of Apple’s first computers. At Duke University, she majored in computer science and economics and then earned a master’s degree in business administration.
French Gates seemed destined for a blue-chip company. But an IBM executive suggested that a talented woman could find more opportunities at Microsoft, a fast-growing software start-up in Seattle. During his 10 years there, French Gates worked as a product manager for Word and oversaw the launch of its Encarta encyclopedia, among other projects.
She started dating her boss about six months after joining Microsoft. He proposed the proposal after drawing up a list of pros and cons on a whiteboard. They co-founded their charitable foundation when Bill retired from Microsoft in 2000, seeking to combine his immense wealth with knowledge of the world of technology.
The spouses worked as equals, according to Mark Suzman, chief executive of what will be renamed the Gates Foundation. But as the saga of the letters suggests, Gates was often seen as first among equals. In her book, French Gates wrote about sometimes feeling “invisible” next to her famous husband.
However, she distinguished herself in a way that her husband could not, according to former executives. A former senior executive called her “the soul” of the foundation, who often made new senior recruits feel welcome.
French Gates began raising his public profile in 2012 when he hosted world leaders at the London Summit on Family Planning. Then, in 2015, she took another step forward by launching Pivotal Ventures to invest in funds and start-ups that empower women.
In a July conversation with The Washington Post, she described her approach as focusing on barriers to women and the industries where they needed the most power, including politics, finance, technology and media. “We are not yet fully capable in the United States,” she said. “You know, we don’t have parity in our halls of Congress, not even close. We don’t have parity in the technology sector. We do not have parity in finances. So we have a long way to go.”
It remains to be seen whether French Gates will use his new resources to expand Pivotal or other ventures. Meanwhile, she exudes a sense of wonder that her life has reached this point. “It’s funny,” reflected French Gates during a recent interview with economist Emily Oster. “We end up in these places in life, right? And you think: well, maybe my voice gives way to something I didn’t even know existed?”
Additional reporting by Andrew Hill