The philanthropist, businesswoman, advocate for women and girls, and author speaks on embracing change, staying motivated and the universal lessons that have shaped her journey in her new book.



“Well, let me just say that I never expected to write a book like this. It is deeply personal, and to be honest, it doesn’t always show me at my best,” Melinda French Gates shares with FORBES AFRICA.



“…Throughout my life, I’ve benefited greatly from people who had the courage to share their stories and be honest about their experiences. Knowing how much their vulnerability helped me on my journey made me want to try to do that for someone else.”



Gates, the founder of Pivotal Ventures–which works to advance social progress and expand women’s power and influence in the U.S. and around the world–and co-founder of the Gates Foundation concedes that she has been through many changes over the past few years.



She adds that, in the toughest moments, she would reach for her bookshelf and find the wisdom she needed to make sense of everything happening around her.


<div class="wp-block-image">
<figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="1024" height="683" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Ludzi-School-Malawi-2023-Photo-Credit-The-Obama-Foundation-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-65247" style="width:678px;height:auto" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Ludzi-School-Malawi-2023-Photo-Credit-The-Obama-Foundation-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Ludzi-School-Malawi-2023-Photo-Credit-The-Obama-Foundation-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Ludzi-School-Malawi-2023-Photo-Credit-The-Obama-Foundation-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Ludzi-School-Malawi-2023-Photo-Credit-The-Obama-Foundation-1536x1025.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Ludzi-School-Malawi-2023-Photo-Credit-The-Obama-Foundation-2048x1366.jpg 2048w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Ludzi Girls Secondary School in Mchinji, on Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2023. (The Obama Foundation)</figcaption></figure></div>


The foundation, which focuses on health, gender equality, global development and education, has reported around $92 million of support in Africa, has offices in Senegal, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Kenya and South Africa and has partnered with the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the African Union, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and Amref Health Africa, among others.



In her new book, The Next Day: Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward, Gates shares a glimpse of the moments that shaped her, including her journey of becoming a mother, the end of her marriage and life after her departure from the foundation. The common thread? Embracing the uncertainty and navigating your way through it.



She also reflects on balancing several roles and how she stays motivated.



“I’ve learned how important it is to take time for myself and to prioritize friendships and family, and I’m very intentional about doing what I need to recharge and regroup. But honestly, I find the work that I’m doing right now extremely energizing… and I want to do everything I can to make a difference,” Gates explains.



“Anytime I meet with one of the amazing partners that Pivotal [Ventures] works with, I walk away with so much motivation and hope. They are forging ahead with such focus and ingenuity that it always inspires me to double down on my own commitment.”



Her philanthropic work alone has afforded her several moments that challenged and inspired her, and gave her the courage to use her voice, including meeting scientists in Senegal who are developing lifesaving vaccines and leading important research, while managing their responsibilities at home.



“[It] reminds me how many exciting innovations are taking place all around the world—and how much more we could unleash if mothers had more support.



“Most recently, on a trip to Cape Town, I was deeply moved by the women I met who are fighting the violence and injustice they’ve endured with so much bravery and resilience. All of these women, and countless others, are the reason I do what I do.”



Her advice for readers in similar periods of transition is to not rush through them: “I know that change can be scary, and it is so tempting to try to get it over with as quickly as possible and jump to the next thing that feels safe and familiar. But if there’s one lesson that I want people to take away from this book, it’s that lingering in the uncertainty can offer a lot of wisdom and perspective that you might not get otherwise. Just know that you don’t have to navigate it alone—you can let the people who love you be there for you. Trust me, they want to”.

MelindaFrenchGates_photo by Jason Bell (21

‘Lingering In The Uncertainty Can Offer Wisdom And Perspective’: Melinda French Gates Puts Pen To Paper, Talks Transition And Moving Forward

In an exclusive with FORBES AFRICA from Seattle in the United States, Melinda French Gates speaks about the billions pledged to support women and combat Covid-19, and the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation’s new Goalkeepers Report that features an updated global dataset explaining the pandemic’s adverse impact on progress toward the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.



Q. How can the world collectively come together to combat the shadow pandemic that women and girls are grappling within Africa, in the wake of Covid-19?



A. Even a cursory look at the latest data shows us how devastating the pandemic has been for women, particularly when it comes to the economy. This year, women’s employment globally is expected to remain 13 million jobs below the 2019 level — while men’s employment is largely expected to recover to pre-pandemic rates.



The reason for these striking gaps is that women have long faced barriers to economic participation – and those barriers have only worsened amid the pandemic. For example, women have a harder time accessing finance and credit than men, and they are disproportionately employed in sectors that have lower pay.



The evidence leaves us no doubt: With women making up 50% or more of the workforce in many African countries, we can either take action now or risk facing decades of growth-restricting inequality.



And if we want to avoid that fate, leaders must prioritize women within pandemic recovery planning and policy-making, and donors and global institutions must further expand their support for women-focused programs.



For example, our foundation recently pledged $2.1 billion to support women’s economic and health issues, which we hope will be just one piece of a larger puzzle. Our hope moving forward is that governments, philanthropies, non-governmental organizations, and everyone looking to improve their corner of the world will join us in supporting the empowerment of women and girls. It’s a step that will ultimately pay off for everyone, everywhere.



Q. What are the foundation&#8217;s plans for Africa in the coming months?



A. Our foundation has worked in partnership with African countries for decades, and the more than $1.9 billion we’ve contributed to the global effort to combat Covid-19 is just the latest part of that commitment. We believe strongly that all people deserve to benefit from the innovations and science developed to respond to the pandemic and save lives. Right now, the lack of equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines is standing in the way of our ability to put the pandemic behind us.



In this year’s Goalkeepers Report, we explain how Covid-19 vaccine access has been strongly correlated with the locations where there is vaccine R&amp;D and manufacturing capability. Though Africa is home to 17% of the world’s population, for example, it has less than 1% of the world’s vaccine manufacturing capabilities. That’s why we’re supporting the Africa CDC and African Union’s vision to create a sustainable regional vaccine development and manufacturing ecosystem in the region. These investments in low- and middle-income countries — which are too often left waiting for life-saving interventions— would better protect communities and families from diseases like Covid-19 in the future.



Our foundation is also committed to investments in Africa because we’ve seen the impact of African innovations on many health and financial challenges. As your magazine recently noted, the continent’s diversity and ingenuity inspires resilience and optimism for the future.



For example, one of South Africa’s leading scientists, Dr Penny Moore, discovered that a coronavirus variant first found in her country could circumvent the immune system. Another example we highlight in the report is Senegal. The country led an incredibly effective campaign to ensure forward momentum on routine immunizations, helping health workers adapt their strategic outreach to their communities during the pandemic.



With more forward-thinking, long-term investments in Africa and by continuing to encourage local innovation, we will all benefit from improved health security and pandemic preparedness moving forward.

French President Macron Hosts Counterparts Attending Generation Equality Forum

‘A Step That Will Ultimately Pay Off For Everyone, Everywhere’- Melinda French Gates In Exclusive Interview

<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/bill-gates/?sh=7717ecda689f">Bill Gates</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/melinda-gates/?sh=3f63649f7c2b">Melinda French Gates</a>&nbsp;are already divvying up their massive fortune, and in the process, Melinda has become a billionaire on her own.



Bill’s investment vehicle, Cascade Investment, transferred nearly $2.4 billion in securities to Melinda on Monday, May 3, the same day the pair announced their&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/melissaholzberg/2021/05/03/bill-and-melinda-gates-announce-divorce/?sh=4f23e9b94272">surprise divorce</a>, according to SEC filings. That makes Melinda worth at least $2.4 billion, while the stock transfer puts a slight dent in Bill’s net worth, which fell to an estimated $128.1 billion, from $130.4 billion on Tuesday. Even after the ten-figure transfer, the Microsoft cofounder remains the fourth richest person in the world.&nbsp;



Melinda received 2.94 million shares of AutoNation and 14.1 million shares of Canadian National Railway Co., which are worth $309 million and $1.5 billion respectively. (Bloomberg News first reported the transfer.) Bill also gave Melinda 25.8 million shares of Mexico-based Coca-Cola Femsa worth $120 million and 155.4 million shares of Mexican broadcaster Grupo Televisa SA, which are worth $386 million, according to SEC filings. The Wall Street Journal first reported the latter transfer.



Bill uses Cascade Investment, a holding company based in Kirkland, Washington, to manage his money, including the proceeds from selling Microsoft shares. Bill at one point owned a significant slice of Microsoft, but has given away (to the Gates Foundation) or sold most of his stake over the years and now holds less than 1%.



The stock transfer is almost certainly part of Bill and Melinda’s divorce settlement. While it’s unclear if they signed a prenup, according to their divorce filing Bill and Melinda&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2021/05/03/how-the-gates-split-could-stack-up-against-the-biggest-billionaire-divorces/?sh=12b9b62e2841">asked</a>&nbsp;a judge in Washington state to divide their assets based on the terms of a separation contract—a document that is typically signed when spouses are living apart but have not yet divorced. The terms of the contract weren’t disclosed. Bill may have also transferred other assets to Melinda in non-public transactions.&nbsp;MORE FOR YOU<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2021/04/22/vc-firm-of-moderna-chairman-dumped-14-billion-of-stock-in-two-months/">VC Firm Of Moderna Chairman Sold $1.4 Billion Of Stock In Two Months</a><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffkauflin/2021/04/07/plaids-134-billion-valuation-makes-its-founders-fintechs-newest-billionaires/">Plaid’s $13.4 Billion Valuation Makes Its Founders Fintech’s Newest Billionaires</a><a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/dawnchmielewski/2021/04/29/endeavor-lands-elusive-ipo-with-emanuel-and-whitesell-controlling-nearly-1-billion-in-shares/">Endeavor Lands Elusive IPO, With Emanuel And Whitesell Controlling Nearly $1 Billion In Shares</a>



A spokesperson for Bill Gates did not reply to a request for comment.&nbsp;A spokesperson for Melinda did not immediately respond to a request for comment.



By Rachel Sandler, Forbes Staff

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Melinda French Gates Now A Billionaire After Stock Transfer From Bill Gates

Bill Gates, the co-founder and former CEO of Microsoft, has announced on Twitter moments ago that he and his wife of 27 years, philanthropist and businesswoman Melinda Gates, have made a decision to end their marriage &#8220;after a great deal of thought and a lot of work&#8221; on their relationship.



In a combined statement, they added: &#8220;Over the last 27 years, we have raised three incredible children and built a foundation that works all over the world to enable all people to lead healthy, productive lives. We continue to share a belief in that mission and will continue our work together at the foundation, but we no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in the next phase of our lives. We ask for space and privacy for our family as we begin to navigate this new life.&#8221;



The Gates&#8217; chair the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation, the world&#8217;s largest private charitable foundation. In mid-March 2020, Gates stepped down as a board member of Microsoft, the software firm he founded with Paul Allen (d. 2018) in 1975.



Among the world&#8217;s richest people, Bill Gates is ranked number 4 on Forbes world billionaires list with a real time net worth of $130.5 billion.

French President Receives Bill Gates, the co-Founder of the Microsoft Company At Elysee Palace

Bill And Melinda Gates End 27-Year Marriage

One of the most powerful women in the world is teaming up with one of the richest women in the world—Melinda Gates and&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/mackenzie-bezos/#efc49bc12948">MacKenzie Bezos</a>, respectively—to host a competition with one goal in mind: gender equality.



Gates and Bezos announced the competition, called the Equality Can’t Wait Challenge, through Pivotal Ventures, Gates’ investment and incubation company. The challenge will be managed by Lever For Change, a MacArthur Foundation affiliate, and will grant $30 million to the organizations (or the coalitions of organizations) with the best ideas for helping to expand women’s power and influence in the United States by 2030.



“Closing the gap on gender equality will benefit everyone. History keeps teaching us that when a diversity of voices is represented in decisions, the outcome is better for all,” MacKenzie Bezos said in a statement Tuesday. “I’m excited that the Equality Can’t Wait Challenge will focus energy and innovation on this vital catalyst for positive change.” 



“The entrenched inequalities that divide America—race, gender, class—will not go away without systems-wide change,” added Melinda Gates in a statement of her own. “This challenge is seeking bold ideas to dismantle the status quo and expand power and influence for women of all backgrounds.”&nbsp;



While Melinda Gates has <a href="https://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/#7eae6d1a4414">long been an outspoken advocate</a> for women’s health and gender equality, Bezos has been quieter with her philanthropy and influence. Since finalizing her divorce from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos last year, Bezos has indicated her philanthropic intentions by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddawkins/2019/05/28/mackenzie-bezos-will-donate-half-her-fortune-to-giving-pledge/#e8b7ffc31d89">signing the Giving Pledge</a> (thereby committing at least half of her now-$51 billion fortune to charity) and joining the board of Blue Meridian, an organization dedicated to helping children and families in poverty. Her contribution to the Equality Can’t Wait initiative marks her biggest public gift to date.



A spokesperson for Lever for Change said that the competition had been in the works for the past six months, and that the timing of its announcement—just weeks after massive protests against systemic racial inequities started spreading across the nation—is not meant to be a reaction to the current reality, but a continuation of serious conversations.



Broadly, the challenge will look for ideas that help dismantle barriers that hold women back (including but not limited to sexual harassment and discrimination, racial inequity, and inadequate federal policies around caregiving); fast-track female participation in sectors like technology, government and entrepreneurship; and change outdated systems and beliefs around gender. Specifically,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.equalitycantwaitchallenge.org/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">according to the challenge’s website</a>, successful proposals should create real, measurable change for women in at least one of the following areas: wages and wealth, unpaid care, share of leadership roles, content creation (in other words, increasing the percentage of cultural and intellectual content created by women), and public perception.



&#8220;When I taught my first course on women in the U.S. economy back in 1985, a female full-time, year-round worker made 65 cents for every dollar earned by a man. In 2018, she earned 82 cents. That’s a raise of less than a penny a year,” noted Cecilia Conrad, the CEO of Lever for Change. She’s hopeful that the Equality Can’t Wait competition will accelerate parity in wages and societal treatment.



To participate in the challenge, organizations must register online by September 1, 2020; fuller applications are due by September 22. Finalists will be announced in early 2021, and winners will be chosen next summer. The $30 million in prize money will be divided among the two most compelling ideas (each will receive a minimum of $10 million) and the remaining finalists.



&#8211;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/">Maggie McGrath</a>, Forbes Staff, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/forbeswomen">ForbesWomen</a>

MacKenzie Bezos And Melinda Gates Team Up On $30 Million Gender Equity Contest

The Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged $1.6 billion to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, for life-saving vaccines.



The Seattle-based Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation has announced a five-year, $1.6 billion commitment to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, to deliver life-saving vaccines to the world’s poorest countries.



This was announced at the Global Vaccine Summit 2020, hosted by Prime Minister Boris Johnson of the United Kingdom. It will help Gavi reach an additional 300 million children in the world’s most vulnerable communities and save up to eight million lives.



In addition to supporting the continuation of routine immunization services during the current Covid-19 crisis, Gavi will deploy potential Covid-19 vaccines to low-income countries when they become available.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">&#8220;To beat the Covid-19 pandemic, the world needs more than breakthrough science. It needs breakthrough generosity.&#8221; – Bill Gates</blockquote>



“And that’s what we’re seeing today as leaders across the public and private sectors are stepping up to support Gavi – especially Prime Minister Johnson,” said Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation, in a press statement. “When Covid-19 vaccines are ready, this funding and global coordination will ensure that people all over the world will be able to access them.”



Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Chair of the Gavi Board, a Nigerian-born economist and former FORBES WOMAN AFRICA cover star, added: “As we enter one of the toughest periods in our history, with the Covid-19 pandemic disrupting vaccine programs across the globe and causing huge economic damage, this pledge will play a vital role in supporting countries’ efforts to prevent the resurgence of other deadly, vaccine-preventable diseases.”&nbsp;

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Billionaire Backing For Global Vaccines

<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“Sometimes it’s the people you can’t help who inspire you the most.” <cite>&#8211; Melinda Gates (American Philanthropist)</cite></blockquote>

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Quote Of The Day

German Chancellor Angela Merkel invited one of the greatest collections of women leaders ever for a G7 meeting inside her vast concrete-and-glass Chancellery last September. You could find the director of the World Health Organization (Margaret Chan) and the CEO of General Motors (Mary Barra). The prime minister of Norway (Erna Sold berg) and the former prime minister of Denmark (Helle Thorning-Schmidt). A Nobel Peace Prize winner (Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf) and a queen (Rania of Jordan).
And at a circular table set for about two dozen, sitting directly across from Merkel: a former Microsoft manager turned philanthropist, Melinda Gates.
After Merkel danke schöns her guests and listens to reports on women’s political participation, health and economic empowerment, she opens up the floor. Gates, wearing a fitted inky-blue suit and reading glasses, speaks first, giving a precise, impassioned four-minute address.
“When you get women in roles of leadership, we make things happen,” Gates says. “It takes us using our voice, and it also takes us making investments, huge investments, in women and girls.”
Alone in this room of world leaders, Gates can single-handedly make that happen. Prime ministers have parliaments; CEOs have boards; Melinda Gates has a $41.3 billion endowment, and she can deploy it in pretty much any manner that she and husband Bill, the world’s richest person, see fit.
This represents a personal transformation. For the first decade and a half of its existence, the Bill &amp; Melinda Gates Foundation deployed its remarkable scale toward eradicating polio and malaria, and experimentation in education issues. But over the past few years, Melinda Gates has embraced having her name on the letterhead of the largest-ever charitable foundation, along with the influence that comes with that. She has become the most powerful person on the planet whose singular focus is women and girls.
“I kept looking for the advocate who would champion these issues,” she says over lunch at the iconic Hotel Adlon Kempinski, during a break from Merkel’s forum.
Gates, 51, has the air of a down-to-earth technocrat, traveling without an entourage but rather with reams of data and determination.
“I knew it had to be a woman. We would talk inside the foundation, ‘Could we get this person or that person?’ I considered other women leaders. But I couldn’t find the one who embodied to me the voice of women around the world. And so I thought, ‘If I’m the one, then I just need to do it. I have to have courage and not worry’.”
Women account for six out of 10 of the world’s poorest and two-thirds of the illiterate. “Excessive female mortality” in the developing world, in the parlance of the International Monetary Fund, means some 3.9 million women and girls are “missing” annually: about two-fifths are never born, one-sixth die in early childhood and more than one-third die during their reproductive years.
“What’s the most pressing issue of our time?” asks Gates. “It really is ending poverty in the world. And we know to do that you have to put women and girls at the center.” Poverty is sexist, and Gates is betting billions that it can be stemmed through the gender historically ignored.
Melinda French Gates was born and bred in Dallas, the daughter of an aerospace-engineer father and a homemaker mother who helped run a family rental property business on the side.
“That was literally how they were going to put us through college, and we all knew it,” she says referencing her sister and two younger brothers. On weekends, the kids cleaned and fixed up the rental properties and kept books on the family’s Apple III.
The valedictorian of her all-girls Catholic school and captain of her high school’s drill team, Gates earned a bachelor’s in computer science and economics and an M.B.A. from Duke in five years, consciously shaving a year so she could get into the workforce faster.
“She always knew what she wanted,” says her sister, Susan French. “She just has this confidence within her. Once she sets her eyes on the next project, her next goal, then it’s all out.”
That next project, in 1987, was Microsoft, as a product manager, where the founder famously asked her out in the company parking lot.
“I worked around a lot of really intelligent guys in college because there were very few women,” she says, describing her initial attraction.
“When I look back, Bill was the same kind of guy I was hanging out with in college. I had a lot of respect for them, and they had respect for me. I was definitely attracted to his brilliant mind, but beyond that, his curiosity. And he has a huge sense of fun. I love that wry side of him.”
The couple dated for seven years before marrying in 1994 in Hawaii. In 1996, Gates, now a general manager at Microsoft, became pregnant with their first child, Jennifer, and chose to stay home.
“That was completely her decision,” says Bill Gates. “I was a little surprised, but that really made sense for her. Then came kids two and three.”
Fast-forward two decades: Jennifer is now 19 and a sophomore at Stanford, with Rory, 16, and Phoebe, 13, leaning on Mom increasingly less. Like many mothers staring down an empty nest, Gates went through a period of intense soul-searching. Now what?
And so she began digging ever deeper into the work at the Gates Foundation, which is concentrated primarily on global health and development, and making stunning progress in eradicating polio, malaria and HIV, and promoting vaccines and sanitation. It should be noted, though, that the foundation “has not been a pioneer when it comes to advocating for women’s health,” says Linsey McGoey, author of No Such Thing as a Free Gift: The Gates Foundation and the Price of Philanthropy.
Increasingly, Gates started focusing less on the foundation’s vertical efforts but rather on how to approach what it was already doing horizontally. Specifically, to fund initiatives in these areas that take the world’s most vulnerable women and girls into account. Yes, there was an empathetic component, but Gates looked through the lens of ROI.
Muhammad Yunus won a Nobel Peace Prize for microloan practices that targeted women in the developing world, recognizing they’re more likely to steward money effectively and channel it into the family. Bill Gates has saved tens of thousands of lives through immunization efforts; Melinda Gates began to encourage grants that took into account that women are more likely than men to take their kids to get immunized.
<div id="attachment_31859" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-31859" class="wp-image-31859 size-large" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/FO121415_062-1024x683.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="683" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FO121415_062.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FO121415_062-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FO121415_062-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FO121415_062-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />&#8221;Women’s issues are the hard issues.”</div>
“When I was first at the foundation I thought of women’s issues as the ‘soft issues,’ and I didn’t want to be seen as soft,” says Gates. “In fact, it’s just the opposite. Women’s issues are the hard issues. You want to get at violence or child marriage? Those are hard. Warren [Buffett] always says you have to swing for the fences.”
Melinda Gates’ public coming out also traces to Berlin. For years, even as she worked at the foundation, she guarded her privacy. (“Bill was already a public figure, so I knew what that half looked like.”) But eventually she decided that advocacy for a cause means putting your face out there.
“I tell my daughters to have their voice in this world, and it became clear I needed to role-model that.”
So three years ago, she came to Germany to give a TedX talk focusing on family planning and universal birth control access. Her original $70-million-a-year commitment was doubled three months later, and she just announced an additional $120 million.
Welcome to the limelight, Melinda. The Vatican’s office newspaper, under Pope Benedict XVI, published a front page headline, “Birth Control and Disinformation: The Risks of Philanthropy”, that accused her of spreading lies. A tough rebuke for a Catholic who says she prays or meditates daily (“whatever you want to call it”).
“It’s a really uncomfortable place to go,” says Gates. “To talk about sex, reproduction, tools. But these were things we were talking about inside the foundation.”
And Gates learned two valuable lessons. First, that when she speaks, by dint of her conviction and resources, the world listens.
“In giving voice to family planning, once I saw we could actually move resources on the global stage, I thought, ‘There are other women’s issues I have to take on’.”
Second, she could take a punch. “They say how mistaken Mrs. Gates was, and she must have been misled by the people who wanted to make money selling reproductive health tools,” says Bill Gates. In response he gave her the newspaper as a gift, which she keeps framed in her office at the foundation’s Seattle headquarters. “I gave her a copy because she decided she would speak up and deal with the controversy. It’s a complex area, but she took it on.”
Those who watch the foundation reject the idea that Melinda operates as a number two to Bill’s number one. “Anyone who’s paying attention understands that she’s playing a leading role,” says Aaron Dorfman of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, a watchdog for the sector.
“We certainly weren’t working as equals when we started together,” says Melinda Gates. “I was down several levels at Microsoft, and he was the CEO. We’ve had to change to really be coequals. It’s not something that immediately happens overnight, but we’re both committed to it. We needed to talk behind the scenes when it wasn’t working. But I think that’s come now.
“We literally hand meetings and issues to one another, and we’re very comfortable about when to make a decision without the other one and when we should do it together. And the together isn’t always because of a dollar issue. It’s more about, ‘Will the other person care about this decision as much as I do?’ ”
“Everything I’ve ever done, I’ve always had a partner,” says Bill Gates. “In the early days of Microsoft it was Paul Allen who helped come up with the ideas and build the early things. Then it became Steve Ballmer, who I met at college and came in and helped run the company and made it super successful. Now it’s Melinda at the foundation.”
She carries the same title as her husband: cofounder and cochair. (Bill’s dad is another cochair and Warren Buffett, who is funnelling his fortune into the foundation, serves as cotrustee.)
“She and Bill are the final deciders,” adds Susan Desmond-Hellmann, the foundation’s CEO, who started in 2014. “The approval process that starts with annual budgets and strategies involves the two of them as equal partners.”
Gates’ family planning initiatives quickly segued to those who got pregnant, specifically maternal and prenatal health. Once you spend time there, infant health is a natural extension. Then a commitment to expand educational opportunities for girls. And what are these young women supposed to do when they get out of school? Gates understands most aren’t going to get paid to work in developing countries. So she’s green-lit numerous programs that encourage micro-entrepreneurship, such as small-plot farming and mobile banking.
The result is a cradle-to-motherhood suite of initiatives for women and girls. The foundation doesn’t break out how much it spends in this area, mostly because it was so woven into its $3.9 billion in outlays in 2014. And it measures how each program specifically helps women and girls.
For example, the foundation backs M-KOPA, a Kenya-based organization that manufactures solar-powered lamps. On paper it’s a gender-neutral program providing the kind of personal power supply that relieves off-the-grid families of the costs and dangers of kerosene lamps. But it disproportionately helps girls, who often do homework at night after a day of chores.
Another partner, GSMA, brings mobile money accounts to the underbanked. Again, a bigger deal for women – just 37% in developing countries hold bank accounts, and many are intentionally excluded from formal financial systems.
“When you go on the ground, in places in India or inner Bangladesh, you kind of don’t want to hear what the women tell you,” she says. “But when you really sit and take it all in, you later go, ‘Oh my God, they’re right’. And this group of women helped me realize that all these other issues I see in the developing world, those issues need to be addressed, too. They’re all part and parcel of the same thing.”
The Gates Foundation is also keen on funding pilots in this area: Successes are rewarded with more money; failures are learning opportunities. Megan White Mukuria is typical. She founded Kenya-based ZanaAfrica Group, an initiative focused on sanitary pads. Girls in many low-income countries stay away from school during their period or even drop out, with numbers as high as one in 10 in Africa.
ZanaAfrica’s grant timeline neatly follows the arc of the foundation’s gender focus. After a $100,000 test phase grant in 2011 to develop sanitary pads from local materials such as bamboo or jute, Mukuria was turned down for a Phase 2 proposal to test distribution strategies and approaches to health education. That “no” went to “maybe yes” two months later and turned into a definite $1 million three months after that. Late 2015, ZanaAfrica received a $2.6 million grant.
“They [the Gates Foundation] initially couldn’t fund the scale-up because sanitary pads are outside their mandate in sanitation, which is all about the toilet,” Mukuria says. “But they literally just winked at each other and said, ‘We have to do this’. And if they didn’t do it, nobody would.”
Expect more such grants in 2016 through a loquaciously named program: the Putting Women and Girls at the Center of Development Challenge. Some 20 awardees will net more than $20 million in grants aimed at gender-specific projects. Small money for Gates but a signal that she’s opening up to groups that see women and girls as the primary goal rather than a beneficial by-product, and a first step toward what Gates hopes might be a clearinghouse for those looking to help in this area.
“Everyone tries to read the tea leaves to understand what’s going to be in favor or out of favor,” says Dorfman, the philanthropy watchdog, “and many groups adjust their work plans accordingly.” That dovetails with a consistent criticism of the Gates Foundation—that it wields too much power and makes too many decisions in an echo chamber.
“Whether Mr. and Mrs. Gates prefer it that way or not,” says the author McGoey, “there’s this perception that the strong directional influence played by the executives is something to be celebrated rather than seen potentially as a cause for problems.”
“My experience has been that she [Melinda] likes to get [others’] views,” says Desmond-Hellmann. “We have people at the foundation who have spent their entire careers on a technical area, say, somebody’s done tuberculosis their whole life.” Asked if anyone says no to Melinda Gates, she laughs. “People do say, ‘Yes, that’s not possible.’ That’s more likely than no.”
“[We are accountable] to the people of the world, honestly,” adds Gates. “I do hope that at the end of our lives somebody will look back and say, ‘Melinda and Bill set out to change the world on behalf of poor people. Did they? Are more kids alive because of the work they did? Are fewer people getting malaria? Are more women getting contraceptives?’ That’s who we are accountable to.”
Back in Berlin, after a state dinner at the Chancellery, Gates heads off to her private jet. Across town from the airport and a world apart from the halls of power she just left is a government complex where thousands of Syrians and other refugees are waiting to register for asylum.
It’s impossible to ignore all the women tending to overstretched strollers filled with little ones and a life’s detritus sagging in plastic bags. They have their own tent for privacy, including nursing. Men stand in overcrowded lines, anxious to be called to sign up for IDs, funds and services. Having trekked all the way to Berlin, the refugees have nothing to do now but wait.
“When you see a picture of a child washed up on the beach — or a mother — so many of the faces you see are women,” she says. “And even if they get across the border, they’re put into camps, which are especially horrible for women in terms of the violence and rape. They’re disproportionately affected. So my heart breaks. It’s not a small heartbreak, it’s a huge heartbreak.”
The Gates Foundation is engineered to move quickly — the couple has dictated that all assets must be put to work and the organization wound down within 20 years of the last cofounder’s passing. So Gates is investing some $17.5 million around the Middle East refugee crisis — an investment that the world sees as alleviating suffering, and that Melinda Gates sees as another step in improving the lives of poor women.
The article first appeared in the December 14, 2015 issue of FORBES. The year references have been accordingly changed.

Tag: Melinda Gates

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