Melinda French Gates

Melinda French Gates (born Melinda Ann French; August 15, 1964) is an American philanthropist. Born and raised in Dallas, Texas, she was educated at Ursuline Academy of Dallas, Duke University, and Duke's Fuqua School of Business. Shortly after joining Microsoft in 1987 as a multimedia product developer, she began dating the company's co-founder and then-chief executive Bill Gates, whom she married in 1994 and divorced in 2021. They have three children together.

From 2000 to 2024, she and Gates co-chaired the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the world's largest private charitable organization. For their philanthropic endeavors, which focused on global health, development, and education, they received numerous awards and honors, including the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom and the French Legion of Honour. After French Gates resigned as co-chair in May 2024, Gates became sole chair of the renamed Gates Foundation.

As part of her divorce settlement, French Gates received $12.5 billion for independent philanthropy, which she has stated will focus on women and families. She has become a prominent megadonor to the Democratic Party, with a focus on abortion rights, and endorsed Kamala Harris in the 2024 US presidential election. In April 2025, she published a memoir, The Next Day: Transition, Change and Moving Forward.

Consistently ranked by Forbes magazine as one of the world's most powerful women, French Gates was recognized as one of the BBC's 100 women of 2021. As of July 2025, her net worth is estimated at US$30.6 billion, according to Forbes.

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.

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 Cinemania, Encarta, Publisher, Microsoft Bob, Money, Works (Macintosh) 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.