Melinda Gates

Background

Melinda French Gates was born on August 15, 1964, in Dallas, Texas. Her father, Raymond Joseph French, was an aerospace engineer and her mother, Elaine Agnes Amerland, was a stay-at-home mom. When Gates was 14, her father purchased the first computer ever sold to customers, the Apple II computer, on which she learned programming and continued her love for technology and science when she attended Ursuline Academy. In the early 1980s, Gates graduated from Duke University with her bachelor’s degree in computer science and a master’s degree in business.

Gates received an opportunity to work for I.B.M. after graduating. Nevertheless, she declined the position to work for Microsoft, a smaller corporation, where she was the youngest hire and the only woman with a business degree in her group of 10. She first met Bill Gates at a P.C. Expo trade exhibition in New York City the year he joined Microsoft. Beginning her career as a marketing manager, she created several multimedia products, including Microsoft Cinemania, Publisher, Word, and Expedia.com. In the early 1990s, Gates got promoted to General Manager of Information Products and held that position until she stepped down from her career with the birth of her first child Jennifer in 1996. Her advocacy and philanthropic work started when she co-founded the Gates Library Foundation with Bill, which later was renamed the Gates Learning Foundation.

In her debut book, “The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World,” Gates exposes us to the women she’s encountered along the way after years of travel, humanitarian work, and in-depth research. To combat pay inequity and assist female founders in the U.S. in 2019, she founded Pivotal Ventures, an investment and incubator.