Melinda Gates
Melinda Gates was born in Dallas, Texas, United States on August 15th, 1964 and is the Entrepreneur. At the age of 59, Melinda Gates biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.
At 59 years old, Melinda Gates has this physical status:
Melinda Ann Gates DBE (née French; August 15, 1964) is an American philanthropist and a former Microsoft general manager.
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a non-profit group in 2000, was co-founded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with her partner Bill Gates.
Gates has consistently been rated as one of the world's most influential women by Forbes.
In 2021, Bill Gates and Melinda Gates divorced.
Early life
Melinda Ann French was born in Dallas, Texas, on August 15, 1964. She is the second of four children born to Raymond Joseph French Jr., an aerospace engineer, and Elaine Agnes Amerland, a homemaker. She has an older sister and two younger brothers.
French, a Catholic, attended St. Monica Catholic School, where she was rated as the best student in her class. Her father introduced the Apple II to her son and a school teacher named Mrs. Bauer, who advocated for teaching the students in the all-girls school computer science. It was from this experience that she first became interested in computer games and the BASIC programming language.
In 1982, French graduated as a valedictorian from Ursuline Academy of Dallas. She earned a bachelor's degree in computer science and economics from Duke University in 1986 and an MBA from Duke's Fuqua School of Business. At Duke, French was a member of Kappa Alpha Theta Sorority, Beta Rho Chapter.
Personal life
Melinda began dating Microsoft CEO Bill Gates in 1987 after he first met him at a trade show in New York. In 1994, she married Gates in a private event held in Lanai, Hawaii. Jennifer, Rory, and Phoebe Gates are three children. The family lives in a Medina, Washington, earth-sheltered mansion overlooking Lake Washington. In Del Mar, California, the family also owns an oceanfront home.
In May 2021, French Gates and her husband announced in a joint statement on social media that they had decided to divorce, bringing an end to 27 years of marriage and 34 years as a couple. According to The Wall Street Journal, French Gates had been meeting with divorce counsel since her husband's employment dealings with convicted sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein became known, and she had warned her husband about engaging with him as early as 2013. Though the couple did not have a prenuptial deal, French Gates (who filed) did not request spousal assistance; her husband sold over $2 billion worth of shares and stocks. On August 2, 2021, the divorce was finalized.
Melinda said in March 2022 that she and Bill were "friendly" but not "patients."
Career
French Gates's first job was tutoring children in mathematics and computer programming. After graduation, she became a marketing manager with Microsoft, being responsible for the development of multimedia products. These included Cinemania, Encarta, Publisher, Microsoft Bob, Money, Works (Macintosh) and Word. She worked on Expedia, which became one of the most popular travel booking websites. In the early 1990s, French Gates was appointed as General Manager of Information Products, a position which she held until 1996. She left Microsoft that year, reportedly, to focus on starting a family.
French Gates served as a member of Duke University's Board of Trustees from 1996 to 2003. She attends the annual Bilderberg Group conference and has held a seat on the Board of Directors of Graham Holdings (formerly The Washington Post Company) since 2004. She was also on the board of directors at Drugstore.com but left in August 2006 to focus on philanthropic projects. Since 2000, French Gates has been active in the public eye, stating "As I thought about strong women of history, I realized that they stepped out in some way". This has helped her work become recognized while also shaping and delivering goals of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. By 2014, Bill and Melinda had donated US$28 billion of their personal wealth to the Foundation. In 2015, French Gates founded Pivotal Ventures as a separate, independent organization to identify, help develop and implement innovative solutions to problems affecting U.S. women and families.
In 2019, French Gates debuted as an author with the book The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World. Former President Barack Obama starred in a comedy sketch in order to promote it. The book highlights the failure to acknowledge women's unpaid work, drawing on feminist economist Dame Marilyn Waring's book If Women Counted.