Melinda Gates

Melinda Ann French was born on August 15, 1964, in Dallas, Texas. 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 Gates, a Catholic, attended St. Monica Catholic School, where she was the valedictorian of her class. At age 14, French Gates was introduced to the Apple II by her father and Mrs. Bauer, a school teacher who advocated teaching computer science at the all-girls school. It was from this experience she developed her interest in computer games and the BASIC programming language.

French Gates graduated as valedictorian from Ursuline Academy of Dallas in 1982. 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 in 1987. At Duke, French Gates was a member of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority, Beta Rho Chapter.

Early career and Microsoft

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 Microsoft Cinemania, Encarta, Publisher, Bob, Money, Works 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.

Corporate directorship

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.

Writing

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 to promote the book. The book highlights the failure to acknowledge women's unpaid work, drawing on feminist economist Dame Marilyn Waring's book If Women Counted.

In 2025, she published the book The Next Day: Transitions, Change, and Moving Forward, also through Flatiron Books.

Melinda began dating Microsoft chief executive Bill Gates in 1987, after meeting him at a trade fair in New York. In 1994, she married Gates in a private ceremony held in Lānaʻi, Hawaii. They have three children. The family maintained a home in an earth-sheltered mansion overlooking Lake Washington in Medina, Washington. The family also owned an oceanfront residence in Del Mar, California.

In May 2021, after 27 years of marriage, Bill and Melinda Gates announced their decision to divorce. According to The Wall Street Journal, Melinda had been meeting with divorce lawyers since at least October 2019, after Bill's business dealings with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein became public. Although the couple did not have a prenuptial agreement, Melinda (who filed) did not request spousal support. She was allocated over $2 billion worth of shares and stocks from the divorce, although the full details of the financial settlement have not been disclosed. The divorce was finalized on August 2, 2021. She has publicly used the name Melinda French Gates since the couple separated.

In October 2021, Melinda and Bill both attended the wedding of their eldest daughter Jennifer to the Olympic equestrian Nayel Nassar. In March 2022, Melinda said that she and Bill were "friendly" but not "friends". In November 2022, she was reported to be dating former Fox News correspondent Jon Du Pre. In April 2024, a spokesperson quashed rumors that French Gates and Du Pre had become engaged, confirming that the two were no longer dating. French Gates became a grandmother for the first time in March 2023, when Jennifer gave birth to a daughter.

French Gates is a practicing Catholic.

In 2025, French Gates went public with a new relationship with Philip Vaughn.

In 2026, French Gates joined the ownership group of the Seattle Kraken as a minority owner.

Since 2000, French Gates has been in the public eye, stating "As I thought about strong women of history, I realized that they stepped out in some way." This has allowed her work shaping and advancing the goals of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to be publicly recognized. By 2022, Bill and Melinda had given US$59.1 billion of their personal wealth to the foundation. On May 13, 2024, French Gates resigned as co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to be effective June 7. The foundation was subsequently renamed the Gates Foundation, with Bill Gates as its sole chair.

In 2015, French Gates founded Pivotal Ventures as a separate, independent organization to identify and implement innovative solutions to problems affecting U.S. women and families. In 2019, she committed to $US1 billion in funding, and in 2025 committed another $US1 billion. In October 2024, in partnership with Lever for Change, an affiliate of the MacArthur Foundation French Gates announced a 2024-25 grant competition called Action for Women's Health, which aims to provide $250 million in grants to fund women's health initiatives..

French Gates, whose net worth in 2025 was estimated at $US30 billion, has pledged to give away the majority of her wealth.

After divorcing Bill Gates, French Gates became a prominent megadonor to the Democratic Party, with a focus on abortion rights. In the lead-up to the 2024 US presidential election, she donated over $10 million to Democratic causes. In that election, she endorsed Joe Biden and then, after he stepped aside, Kamala Harris, her first presidential endorsements.