Background

Melinda Gates was born on August 15, 1964, in Dallas, Texas, the United States, to Raymond Joseph French Jr. and Elaine Agnes Amerland. Her father was an aerospace engineer, who did a side business of renting properties and her mother was a homemaker. She has two younger brothers and an elder sister.

The Frenches were intent on sending all four of their children to college so Melinda's father started a side business for rental properties. The family used an Apple III computer to keep the rental business organized. Melinda was in awe of the computer at the time but would later denounce the brand when she became a Microsoft employee.

Education

Melinda studied at St. Monica Catholic School, where she excelled in academics and was among the top students of her class. Melinda was valedictorian and head of the drill team at her high school, Ursuline Academy of Dallas, from where she graduated in 1982. She developed an interest in computers and maths while in high school.

She went on to pursue this interest in college, earning a bachelor's degree in computer science from Duke University in 1986. The following year, she obtained a master's in business administration, with a focus in economics, from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. At Duke, Melinda was a member of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority.

Career

After graduating from college, Melinda joined Microsoft in 1987 and was part of several developmental projects in multimedia that include Microsoft Bob, Expedia, Encarta, and Publisher. She worked with Microsoft for nine years to rise from a product manager to the position of General Manager of Information Products, till she got married to her boss and gave birth to her first child.

Along with her husband, Melinda initiated her charitable endeavors in 1994, largely at the behest of Bill’s father, William H. Gates, but also from the example of Bill’s mother, a devoted philanthropist who had died earlier that year. Although the foundation's initial goal was to place computers and Microsoft products in libraries all over the United States, over the years Melinda expanded the organization's vision to include worldwide improvements in education. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's efforts also came to address global poverty and health issues.

After getting married she served as a member of the board of trustees of Duke University from 1996 to 2003. She is on the board of directors of the Washington Post company and is an active participant in the Bilderberg Group conferences for fostering dialogue between Europe and North America. She was also on the board of directors of Drugstore.com until it was acquired by Walgreens.

She chaired the $300 million fundraising campaign to expand the facilities at the Seattle Children’s Hospital in 2006 in recognition of which the hospital dedicated the ambulatory care building in her name. She also pledged a large sum of financial assistance towards improving the availability of contraceptives for women in poorer countries. In 2011, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation officially restated its mission as: "improving equity in four areas: global health, education, access to digital information via public libraries, and support for at-risk families in Washington State and Oregon." In 2012 Melinda pledged $560 million toward improving access to contraception for women in third-world countries.

In 2013, she launched a partnership with Hillary Clinton to gather and supply data for the Clinton Foundation on the progress of women and the girl child around the world since the 1995 United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. In 2016, she began working on a project to enhance the participation of women in technology. She spoke on the subject at the 2017 Grace Hopper Celebration and emphasized the need for women around the world to be given the opportunity to work, besides running their homes and bringing up children.

Melinda and her husband also remain committed to changing the state of education in the United States. Their foundation helps students fund their studies through the Gates Millennium Scholars program. As she wrote on her Facebook page, "Bill and I believe that education is the great equalizer." Demonstrating their support of progressive workplace policies, Melinda and Bill announced in 2015 that employees of their foundation would receive up to a year's paid leave after the birth of a child or the adoption of a child. The following year, they were recognized for their philanthropic work with the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama.

Ultimately, the next global threat came in the form of the novel coronavirus that rapidly spread after first surfacing in China in late 2019. Melinda and her husband devoted their foundation's considerable resources toward combating the outbreak, pairing with leading pharmaceutical companies to fund the development of a vaccine. In 2019, Melinda's book, The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes The World, was published.

Achievements

• 

  Melinda Gates is best known for her philanthropic work as the co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She has received an honorary doctorate in medicine from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden; an honorary degree from the University of Cambridge, and an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters by Duke University as a tribute to her charitable work and financial contributions.
  
  She was made an honorary Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2013 for her philanthropy and international development work. President Barack Obama honored Melinda and her husband with the Presidential Medal of Freedom for their charitable work in 2016.
  
  In 2017, Melinda and Bill Gates were awarded the Legion of Honour by the French government and the Otto Hahn Peace Medal by Germany for their contribution to international peace and understanding. She was also ranked number three in the Forbes list of 100 Most Powerful Women in 2013, 2014, and 2017.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Moment of Lift

    (Melinda’s unforgettable narrative is backed by startling ...)

    2019

Religion

Melinda Gates was raised in the Roman Catholic faith. As a practicing Catholic who believes deeply in Catholic teachings about social justice, she was deeply moved by Pope Francis’ "Amoris Laetitia" and his compassionate understanding that parents should be able to decide for themselves what is best for their families.

Politics

Bill and Melinda Gates disagree with President Donald Trump. They reportedly split with the president and the Republican Party on a number of issues, including foreign aid, taxes, education spending, and protections for 1.8 million immigrants brought illegally to the United States as children. According to an email from Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, she and her husband were considered as suitable vice-presidential candidates.

Views

Melinda Gates is a feminist. In September 2016, Melinda announced her desire to begin working on the lack of women in technology. In the 2016 annual letter from the Gates Foundation, Melinda Gates said women should "spend more time doing paid work, starting businesses, or otherwise contributing to the economic well-being of societies around the world. The fact that they can't, holds their families and communities back."

Quotations: "All women, everywhere, have the same hopes: we want to be self-sufficient and create better lives for ourselves and our loved ones."

"Great wealth can be very confusing. It can inflate and distort your sense of self - especially if you believe money means merit."

"Women and girls should be able to determine their own future, no matter where they're born."

"Many successful social movements are driven by the same combination - strong activism and the ability to take pain without passing it on. Anyone who can combine those two finds a voice with moral force."

"Being a feminist means believing that every woman should be able to use her voice and pursue her potential and that women and men should all work together to take down the barriers and end the biases that still hold women back."

Membership

Melinda's dedication to her schoolwork did not deter her from social life. She was a member of Duke's Beta Rho chapter of Kappa Alpha Theta Sorority. In a 1995 interview, a sorority sister remembered her as a serial monogamist and a reserved dresser.

• 

  Kappa Alpha Theta

Personality

Melinda Gates believes that family comes first. In order to spend time with her family, she has a custom of unorganized weekends with her kids. She believes that communication among family members is excessively significant. Therefore, she prefers to visit a mall, casually sit at home or host a movie night and popcorn with her family members and discuss her various visits to the third world countries as well as her experiences. According to Melinda Gates, the activity they do doesn’t matter as long as the members of the family are together.

Melinda has an inclination towards jigsaw and math puzzle. She along with her husband shares a passion for solving such puzzles. They have had the ritual of solving puzzles since they began dating. She likes solving math puzzles along with her husband during their time together. She likes to indulge in puzzle competitions along with her husband as she claims that they provide a challenge and are very interesting to complete.

Interests

• Kayaking

• Politicians

  Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama

• Writers

  The Hate U Give, On the Come Up by Angie Thomas, Heartland by Sarah Smarsh, A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles, The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker, Getting Better by Charles Kenny, The Man Who Fed the World by Leon Hesser, Energy Myths and Realities by Vaclav Smil, The Last Hunger Season by Roger Thurow, However Long the Night by Aimee Molloy, In the Company of the Poor by Paul Farmer and Gustavo Gutierrez, Change by Design by Tim Brown, Mighty Be Our Powers by Leymah Gbowee.

• Artists

  Kim Salt, Anna Godeassi

• Sport & Clubs

  Tennis, soccer

• Athletes

  Melinda Gates

• Music & Bands

  Bono

Connections

In 1987 Melinda first met her new boss, Bill, at a PC trade show in Manhattan. She found his sense of humor surprising and refreshing within the context of the corporate climate of the times. When he eventually asked her out with a couple of weeks' notice, she initially was put off by his over-planning but soon realized his busy schedule made spontaneity difficult. Accepting this, she agreed to a date.

The couple dated for six years before they finally got married in 1994, in a private ceremony held at Lanai, Hawaii. She left her job with Microsoft when her eldest daughter, Jennifer, was born in 1996, to devote more time to raising her children. The couple has two daughters and a son with whom they reside in their estate on the shore of Lake Washington close to Seattle.

Father:

Raymond Joseph French Jr.

Mother:

Elaine Agnes Amerland French

Melinda has the routine of seeking her mother, Elaine, whenever she needs a guiding figure or support system. She has the policy of talking to her mother on the telephone every week.

Spouse:

Bill Gates

Melinda was quite taken aback when her boss asked her for a date which was scheduled two weeks from the date he asked her. She liked his sense of humor and approachability and later realized his busy pace of life that forced him to schedule his commitments in a deliberate manner.

Daughter:

Phoebe Adele Gates

Son:

Rory John Gates

Daughter:

Jennifer Katharine Gates

Friend:

Warren Buffett

Buffett is a good friend of Melinda and Bill Gates and is responsible for contributing large sums of money to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Acquaintance:

Barack Obama

Acquaintance:

Hillary Clinton

Friend:

Bono (Paul Hewson)

References

• Melinda Gates on Instagram