Billionaire philanthropist Melinda French Gates: beyond her former marriage to Bill Gates
- French Gates may have recently left the Gates Foundation, but continues to dedicate herself to philanthropic work with women and girls
Few women seem more down-to-earth than Melinda French Gates – and yet the ex-Microsoft executive and mother-of-three is one of the richest women in the world. Worth a staggering US$11 billion, according to Forbes, the 59-year-old continues to use her platform to make others’ lives better, particularly women, and hasn’t shied away from discussing difficulties in her own personal life either.
Here’s what you need to know about the inspirational figure.
What is Melinda French Gates’ family background?
Melinda Ann French was born on August 15, 1964, in Dallas, Texas. Her father, an aerospace engineer who worked for Nasa, encouraged her keen interest in science and technology from a young age, even telling her she should learn to code, she recalled once in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
How did Melinda French Gates meet Bill Gates?
Melinda first met Bill at a work dinner in New York in 1987, less than a month into her Microsoft job, according to her interview with David Rubenstein. However, she admitted that being in a relationship with the company’s founder worried her at first.
“The first date with Bill I thought I would go out with him once, maybe twice. Then when I realised we were gonna start dating more I thought, this is tricky,” she said, adding, “I’m not sure I wanna do this, because I’d worked really hard to get my MBA, I’d studied economics. and I thought ‘I’m not sure this is gonna go well for me’.”
Despite her reservations, the pair got married in Hawaii in 1994, went on to have three children together, and, in 2000, created the organisation that continues to be their legacy – the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, per People.