Melinda French Gates facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Melinda French Gates
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French Gates in 2014
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Melinda Ann French
August 15, 1964 Dallas, Texas, U.S.
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| Education | Duke University (BA, MBA) |
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| Political party | Democratic |
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| Children | 3, including Phoebe |
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Melinda French Gates (born Melinda Ann French; August 15, 1964) is an American who works to help people around the world. She was born and grew up in Dallas, Texas. She went to Duke University and earned college degrees there.
After joining Microsoft in 1987, she started dating Bill Gates, who helped start the company. They got married in 1994 and had three children. They divorced in 2021.
From 2000 to 2024, Melinda and Bill Gates led the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. This is one of the biggest private charities in the world. They worked on improving health, education, and development globally. They received many awards for their efforts, like the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom. In May 2024, Melinda French Gates left her role at the foundation. Bill Gates then became the only leader of the renamed Gates Foundation.
After her divorce, Melinda French Gates received money for her own charity work. She plans to use this money to help women and families. She also supports the Democratic Party and endorsed Kamala Harris in the 2024 U.S. presidential election. In April 2025, she released a book called The Next Day: Transition, Change and Moving Forward.
Forbes magazine has often listed Melinda French Gates as one of the world's most powerful women. She was also named one of the BBC's 100 women of 2021. In July 2025, her wealth was estimated to be about US$30.6 billion.
Contents
Early Life and Education
Melinda Ann French was born on August 15, 1964, in Dallas, Texas. She was the second of four children. Her father, Raymond Joseph French Jr., was an engineer. Her mother, Elaine Agnes Amerland, was a stay-at-home parent. Melinda has an older sister and two younger brothers.
Melinda French Gates is Catholic. She went to St. Monica Catholic School and was the top student in her class. When she was 14, her father and a teacher, Mrs. Bauer, showed her an Apple II computer. This was an early computer. This experience made her interested in computer games and learning the BASIC programming language.
Melinda French Gates graduated as the top student from Ursuline Academy of Dallas in 1982. She earned a bachelor's degree in computer science and economics from Duke University in 1986. She then earned another degree, an MBA, from Duke's Fuqua School of Business in 1987. At Duke, she was part of a student club called Kappa Alpha Theta.
Career Journey
Early Work at Microsoft
Melinda French Gates's first job was teaching children math and computer programming. After college, she became a marketing manager at Microsoft. She helped create many multimedia products. These included programs like Cinemania, Encarta, and Publisher. She also worked on Expedia, which became a very popular website for booking travel.
In the early 1990s, French Gates became a General Manager of Information Products. She held this job until 1996. She left Microsoft that year to focus on starting a family.
Board Roles
Melinda French Gates was a member of Duke University's board of trustees from 1996 to 2003. She also attends the yearly Bilderberg Group conference. Since 2004, she has been on the board of directors for Graham Holdings, which used to be The Washington Post Company. She was also on the board of directors at Drugstore.com but left in 2006 to focus on her charity work.
Helping Others Through Philanthropy
Since 2000, Melinda French Gates has been very active in public life. She said that strong women in history often stepped out and made a difference. This helped her work with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation become well-known. By 2022, Bill and Melinda had given US$59.1 billion of their own money to the foundation.
On May 13, 2024, Melinda French Gates announced she was leaving her role as co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. This change happened on June 7. The foundation was then renamed the Gates Foundation, with Bill Gates as its only leader.
In 2015, French Gates started Pivotal Ventures. This is a separate group that finds new ways to solve problems for women and families in the U.S. In 2024-25, Pivotal Ventures announced a grant competition called Action for Women's Health. It plans to give $250 million to support women's health projects.
Writing Books
In 2019, Melinda French Gates became an author. Her first book was called The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World. Former president Barack Obama even appeared in a funny video to help promote it. The book talks about how important it is to recognize the unpaid work that women do. In 2025, she published another book, The Next Day: Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward.
Women in Technology
Melinda French Gates worked in a field where most people were men at Microsoft. This experience made her want to encourage more women to work in computer science. In September 2016, she said she wanted to see more variety in workplaces, especially in technology. She stated that fewer women are becoming technology experts, which is not good for society, and that this needs to change. French Gates also spoke about this topic at the 2017 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing, which is a conference for women in computing.
Awards and Recognition
In 1998, Melinda and Bill Gates were both given an American Library Association Honorary Membership. In 2002, they received an award for helping disadvantaged people. In December 2005, Time magazine named Melinda and Bill as Persons of the Year, along with Bono.
On May 4, 2006, Melinda and Bill Gates received the Spanish Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation. This was for their worldwide impact through charity. In November 2006, French Gates received an award from Mexico, the Order of the Aztec Eagle, for her charity work in health and education, especially in Mexico.
In May 2006, Seattle Children's Hospital named a building after Melinda French Gates. This was to honor her work in improving the lives of children. She led a campaign that raised $300 million for the hospital. This money helped expand facilities, pay for care for those who couldn't afford it, and grow the hospital's research to find cures.
In 2007, French Gates received an honorary doctorate in medicine from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. In 2009, she and Bill received honorary degrees from the University of Cambridge. Their gift of $210 million in 2000 helped create the Gates Cambridge Scholarships, which support students from outside the UK to study at the university. In 2013, Duke University also gave her an honorary degree for her commitment to charity.
Forbes magazine has often included her in its list of the 100 Most Powerful Women. She was ranked #3 in 2013, 2014, 2015, and 2017. In 2013, she also received the UCSF medal. French Gates was given an honorary title, Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE), in 2013 for her work in charity and international development. In 2015, Bill and Melinda received India's third-highest civilian honor, Padma Bhushan, for their foundation's work in India. In 2016, President Barack Obama gave French Gates and her husband the Presidential Medal of Freedom for their charity efforts.
In 2017, President François Hollande gave French Gates and her husband France's highest national honor, the Legion of Honour, for their charity work. That same year, she received the Otto Hahn Peace Medal for her great work in promoting peace and understanding worldwide. In June 2024, she gave the graduation speech at Stanford University.
Personal Life
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Melinda started dating Microsoft chief executive Bill Gates in 1987. They met at a trade fair in New York. In 1994, she married Gates in a private ceremony in [[Lānaʻi]], Hawaii. They have three children. The family lived in a large home overlooking Lake Washington in Medina, Washington. They also owned a home by the ocean in Del Mar, California.
In May 2021, after 27 years of marriage, Bill and Melinda Gates announced they were getting a divorce. Melinda had been talking with divorce lawyers since at least October 2019, after some of Bill's business connections became public. The divorce was finalized on August 2, 2021. She has publicly used the name Melinda French Gates since then.
In October 2021, Melinda and Bill both attended their oldest daughter Jennifer's wedding. In March 2022, Melinda said that she and Bill were "friendly" but not "friends." In November 2022, it was reported that she was dating Jon Du Pre, a former news correspondent. In April 2024, a spokesperson confirmed they were no longer dating. Melinda French Gates became a grandmother for the first time in March 2023, when Jennifer had a daughter.
Melinda French Gates is a practicing Catholic.
Political Activities
After her divorce, Melinda French Gates became very wealthy on her own. She now gives a lot of money to the Democratic Party. She focuses on supporting causes she believes in, especially those helping women and families. Before the 2024 U.S. presidential election, she donated over $10 million to Democratic causes. In that election, she supported Joe Biden and then, after he stepped aside, Kamala Harris. These were her first times publicly supporting presidential candidates.
Books by Melinda French Gates
- The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World (2019) ISBN: 978-1-250-31357-7
- The Next Day: Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward (2025) ISBN: 978-1-250-37865-1
See also
In Spanish: Melinda Gates para niños
