Melinda French Gates, 1964

Melinda Gates WWP

Portrait of Bill and Melinda Gates by Jon R. Friedman on display at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. Photo credit - WWP team

A businesswoman, philanthropist, and global advocate for women and girls. The co-founder and co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.



Melinda French Gates was born in Dallas, Texas. She attended St. Monica Catholic School – the top student in her class. At 14, she was introduced to the Apple II, one of the first home computers, and became interested in computer games and programming languages. After high school, she studied at Ursuline Academy of Dallas, graduating valedictorian. Afterward, she attended Duke University, earning a bachelor’s degree in computer science and economics and then an MBA.

At the age of 23, she began to work at Microsoft, first as a marketing manager and then as a general manager of information products, responsible for the development of multimedia and interactive products such as the movie guide Cinemania, the digital encyclopedia Encarta, and the travel booking websites Expedia.

In 1987, the same year she started her new job, she met Microsoft CEO Bill Gates at a PC trade fair in NYC. The couple dated six years before they got married in 1994. Two years later, Gates left Microsoft to focus on her first newborn.

In 2000, Gates and her husband combined three charitable organizations they established a few years earlier into the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). Their initial goal was to supply Microsoft products to libraries throughout the US to improve education, but over the years, she redefined the mission to address health issues and global poverty and divided the BMGF into three departments – global development, worldwide health, and community and education in the US. As co-chair of BMGF, Gates is in charge of improving the foundation’s strategies, results and setting new ways to execute its causes. Throughout the years, the BMGF had donated billions of dollars to improve various issues. Among these are – infectious disease control, family planning, agricultural development, and education. In addition to the foundation donations, the Gates donate millions of dollars from their personal wealth to other institutes, such as the Health Foundation, Duke’s Scholars Program, and the Seattle Children’s Hospital. For their philanthropic work, Gates and her husband received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama.

In 2015, Gates founded Pivotal Ventures, an independent investment and incubation company that focuses on the social progress of girls and women in the US. Throughout her career, Gates also served as a board member of various organizations, including Duke University’s Board of Trustees, the board of directors at Drugstore.com, and the Board of Directors of Graham Holdings.

Speech by Chief Guest Melinda French Gates | Global Convocation

Melinda French Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, @GatesFoundation, guides graduates on how to create a fairer world.​
#AKUConvocation #AKU20

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“Sometimes it's the people you can't help who inspire you the most.”

“Sometimes it's the people you can't help who inspire you the most.”

Fun Facts

  • She got divorced in 2021 and has three children.
  • She was a member of the Beta Rho Chapter of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority.
  • She authored the book The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World.
  • Following her divorce, she became a billionaire after receiving $1.8 billion worth of stock from Bill Gates.
  • The Melinda French Gates Ambulatory Care building at Seattle Children's Hospital is named in her honor.
  • She was ranked in the top 10 of Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women list for nine consecutive years (2011-2020).
  • She is an honorary Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Awards

  • The Award for Greatest Public Service Benefiting the Disadvantaged (2002)
  • The Spanish Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation (2006)
  • The Insignia of the Order of the Aztec Eagle (2006)
  • The UCSF medal (2013)
  • Padma Bhushan – India's third-highest civilian honor (2015)
  • The Presidential Medal of Freedom (2016)
  • The Otto Hahn Peace Medal (2016)
  • The Commander of the Legion of Honour (2017)
  • Honorary doctorates from the University of Cambridge, Duke University, and the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden.

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Speech by Chief Guest Melinda French Gates | Global Convocation

Melinda French Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, @GatesFoundation, guides graduates on how to create a fairer world.​
#AKUConvocation #AKU20
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Adena Friedman WWP
Economics & Finance

Adena Friedman, 1969

A businesswoman, the president and CEO of Nasdaq, the first woman in this position and to lead a global exchange.

Born Adena Robinson Testa in Baltimore, Maryland. She earned her BA in political science from Williams College in Massachusetts and an MBA from Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management. In 1993, at the age of 24, she married Michael Cameron Friedman. In that same year, she joined Nasdaq as an intern and soon began moving up. In her first 18 years at Nasdaq, Friedman served in various positions, such as marketing manager, head of data products, head of corporate strategy, and Chief Financial Officer. In 2011, at 42, Friedman left Nasdaq to join Carlyle Group, a private investment firm in Washington DC. There, she served as Chief Financial Officer and Managing Director. After three years, she returned to Nasdaq as president and Chief Operating Officer. In 2017, in addition to her role as president, 48 years old Freidman was appointed CEO of the Nasdaq. The first woman in this position and the first woman to lead a global exchange. She oversees the company’s business segments, focusing on efficiency, product development, expansion, and growth. Under her leadership, Nasdaq transformed into a leading global exchange and technology solutions company, operating across six continents. In addition to her work in Nasdaq, Freidman is also a member of several boards. Among them are – the board of directors at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the board of FCLTGlobal – a non-profit organization that works on ways to encourage long-term investing, and the board of Greater Washington, DC. A Chapter of Junior Achievement – a non-profit organization that supports teens in their way to financial independence. Freidman often speaks about women in leadership positions, advocating for mentoring and creating career opportunities for women in the financial industry. Share:This post is also available in: Español Read more...
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Fashion & Beauty

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Anna Wintour was born in London, England, the eldest of five children. Her interest in fashion started at a young age, watching music television broadcasts and reading Seventeen magazine. She attended North London Collegiate School, where she was known for being a rebel for shortening the hemlines of her skirts. At age 15, she began to work at a fashion boutique, and at 16, she dropped out of school to participate in a training program at Harrods while taking fashion classes. Not long after, she began to work at OZ magazine. At the age of 21, Harper’s & Queen magazine hired her as an editorial assistant, and a few years later, she moved to NYC to work as a junior fashion editor at Harper’s Bazaar, from which she got fired because she “did not understand the American market.” Afterward, she found an editor position at an erotic magazine for women, and when it shut down, she took a hiatus from work for a couple of years. In 1980, she returned to NYC and worked as a fashion editor in several magazines until she landed a position as Vogue’s first creative director. At the time, she began dating her future husband, David Shaffer and got married in 1984. The following year, she moved back to London to take over the UK Vogue. After two years, she relocated to NYC to edit House & Garden magazine but shortly after, she was appointed editor-in-chief of US Vogue. In her new position, she made radical changes in the magazine, renewing its focus on fashion and changing the style of the cover pictures. She began to present unfamiliar models and famous women on the covers and mixed high fashion with inexpensive clothes. Under her editorship, the magazine became at the forefront of the fashion world, setting new trends and launching the careers of many models, photographers, and designers. She became and still is the fashion world queen and a fashion icon. Share:This post is also available in: Español Read more...
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Business & Entrepreneurship

Annie Turnbo Malone, 1869-1957

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Academy & Education

Betty Reid Soskin, 1921

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