Melinda Gates

Melinda French Gates is a philanthropist, businesswoman, global advocate for women and girls, and the cofounder and co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Melinda is also the co-founder of The Giving Pledge and the founder of Pivotal Ventures, an investment and incubation company working to drive social progress for women and families in the United States. She is the author of the bestselling book The Moment of Lift, which introduces readers to the inspiring women she has met during her work and travels around the world and shares her own journey to becoming an advocate for women and girls.

Melinda was married to Bill Gates for twenty-seven years. They divorced in August 2021. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Melinda is worth $11.4 billion.

Melinda co-founded the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. In 1994, newlyweds Melinda and Bill Gates helped form the William H. Gates Foundation that later merged with the Gates Learning Foundation in 2000 to become the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is a nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world, and has granted more than $60 billion in aid. Melinda is co-chair of the Board of Trustees.

Melinda founded investment and incubation company Pivotal Ventures in 2015 to advance social progress in the United States. The company supports partners advancing progress for women and families in the United States through both philanthropic and investment capital. Pivotal Ventures takes two approaches to investment. First, it invests in early-stage, untested, or provocative approaches that create a path to impact at scale, and second, it supports emerging and existing leaders, builds capacity and drives alignment toward common goals.

Melinda released her first and only book The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World through Flatiron Books on April 23, 2019. Her time at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation taught her that if you want to lift a society up, invest in women. Melinda will be donating all the amounts she receives from this book to charity.

Melinda has received many awards for her philanthropy over the years. In 2005, Melinda was named one of Time's “Persons of the Year" for her and her husband's charitable work and activism aimed at reducing global poverty and improving world health. On November 22, 2016, President Barack Obama awarded Melinda and her husband the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In April 2017, French President Francois Hollande awarded Melinda and her husband the Commander of the Legion of Honour title for their philanthropic activities to improve public health and encourage development in poor countries.

Melinda joined Microsoft in 1987 after finishing her MBA at Duke University. She started out as a product manager, primarily developing multimedia and interactive products and worked her way up to general manager of information products. The products she worked on included the budget trip-planning website Expedia, the interactive movie guide Cinemania, and the multimedia digital encyclopedia Encarta. She worked at Microsoft for nine years before leaving the company to focus on her family and philanthropic work.

She earned a BS in Computer Science and Economics in 1986 from Duke University. In 1987, she earned her MBA from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. Melinda served on the Duke Board of Trustees from 1996 to 2003. Prior to college, she attended the private school Ursuline Academy of Dallas.

The second of four children, Melinda grew up in Dallas, Texas. Melinda met Bill Gates while working at Microsoft in 1987, and the two were married in Hawaii on January 1, 1994. She has three children, Jenn, Rory, and Phoebe, and lives in Seattle, Washington. Melinda's divorce from Bill Gates was finalized by a judge on August 2. 2021.