Early Life

Melinda Gates was born as Melinda Ann French on August 15 1964 in Dallas, Texas. She is the second of four children of her parents Raymond Joseph French Jr. And Elaine Amerland French. Her father, Raymond Joseph French Jr. worked as an aerospace engineer and her mother, Elaine Amerland French was a homemaker.

Melinda Gates grew up in a family that was very close and they were not very rich or very poor they were like other families. Melinda Gates was raised in a family and her family wanted her to study hard and do well in school from a very young age.

When Melinda Gates was a teenager her father showed her an Apple II computer. This is what got her interested in technology and computer programming and educational software. Melinda Gates liked learning about these things. She thought they were very useful, for education. She went to St. Monica Catholic School. Then she enrolled at Ursuline Academy of Dallas. She graduated from Ursuline Academy of Dallas as the valedictorian in 1982.

She really liked technology and economics so she decided to go to Duke University. At Duke University she got a Bachelor of Science degree in computer science and economics in 1986.

Then she stayed at Duke University to get her MBA. She graduated from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University in 1987.

While she was, at Duke University she was part of the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority, which’s the Beta Rho Chapter. Her education and experience prepared her for a successful career in the tech world. This was a deal because the tech world was mostly made up of men back in the 1980s and 1990s. The tech world was a place for women to succeed in the 1980s and 1990s. Her education and experience, in the tech world really helped her.

Bio & Social Media

Field	Details
Date of Birth	August 15, 1964
Age	60 Years
Screen Name	Melinda French Gates
First Name	Melinda
Full Name	Melinda Ann French Gates
Gender	Female
Father	Raymond Joseph French Jr.
Mother	Elaine Agnes Amerland
Siblings	3
Birth Place	Dallas, Texas, United States
Residence	Seattle, Washington, United States
Nationality	American
Profession	Businesswoman, Investor, Entrepreneur
Spouse	Bill Gates (m. 1994; div. 2021)
Relationships	Bill Gates (Ex-Husband), Philip Vaughn (Current Partner, 2024–Present)
No of Relationships	2
Children	3
Children’s Names	Jennifer Katharine Gates, Rory John Gates, Phoebe Adele Gates
Zodiac Sign	Leo
Height	5’6″ (1.68 m)
Eye Color	Dark Brown
Hair Color	Light Brown
Net Worth	$29.6 Billion
Category	Businesswoman, Investor, Entrepreneur
Social Media:	Melinda Gates 1.1 M+ Followers
Facebook Page	Melinda Gates 2.5 M+ Followers
Twitter (X):	Melinda Gates 2.3 M+ Followers
TikTok:	Will Update Soon
YouTube:	Melinda Gates 89.3K+ Followers
Threads	Melinda Gates 249.9K+ Followers
Snap Chat	Will Update Soon
Wikipedia:	Melinda Gates

Career

Melinda started working with kids to help them with math and computer stuff.. The big change in her career happened when she got a job at Microsoft in 1987. She was a marketing manager. At that time Microsoft was getting really big and making software for people. Melinda was a part of that. She was in charge of making and selling some of Microsofts products like Encarta, Cinemania, Microsoft Money, Publisher, Works and Word. These were all cool products that people used for different things. Melinda played a role in getting these products out to people. She helped make Microsofts multimedia and productivity products popular. Melinda worked on Encarta, Cinemania, Microsoft Money, Publisher, Works and Word and these products were all important, for Microsoft. Her work was really important because it helped Microsoft become a player in the software market for a long time. Microsoft is still really good, at making software that people want to use. This is because of the work she did. Microsoft is a company that makes software for people to use at home. Her work helped Microsoft make good software that people like to use.

She was also involved in the development of Expedia. This started as a project inside Microsoft. Expedia did not do well at first when it was part of Microsoft.. Later on Expedia became one of the biggest online travel agencies, in the world after it became independent in the late 1990s. Expedia changed a lot over time. It is still Expedia today.

In the 1990s Melinda got a big job at Microsoft. She became the General Manager of Information Products. This meant Melinda was, in charge of teams that worked on different software launches. Melinda did this job until 1996. Then she decided to leave Microsoft. Melinda wanted to spend time with her family. Over time Melinda started to think about helping people, which is called philanthropy. Melinda was focusing on Microsoft and her job then she started focusing on her family and philanthropy.

Outside of her job at Microsoft Melinda does a lot of things. She was on the board at Duke University from 1996 to 2003. Melinda has been on the board at The Washington Post since 2004. Melinda was also, on the board of a company called drugstore.com, which’s not around anymore.

Personal Life

Melinda Gates got married to Bill Gates in a ceremony on the island of Lanai, Hawaii in 1994. They met each other when they were both working at Microsoft. Melinda Gates and Bill Gates were married, for 27 years. Then they announced that they were getting a divorce in 2021. Melinda Gates and Bill Gates have three kids together: Jennifer, Rory and Phoebe Gates. Even though Melinda Gates and Bill Gates are not together anymore they still work together on charity work. Melinda Gates and Bill Gates have been doing this for years now.

Net Worth

Melinda Gates is a rich woman. She has a lot of money, seventeen billion dollars to be exact. This makes Melinda Gates one of the women in the world. Melinda Gates is also well known because she used to be married to Bill Gates. Bill Gates is a man who helped start Microsoft. Bill Gates and Melinda Gates were married for a time from 1994, to 2021.

Melinda Gates is an important person because she started the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with her husband. This foundation is one of the most well known charity groups in the world. For over twenty years Melinda Gates helped decide how to use than eighty billion dollars to make the world a better place. She wanted to help people get healthy have money to live get a good education and make sure women are treated fairly. At first people knew her as the wife of Bill Gates, who co-founded Microsoft.. Over time Melinda Gates became known as a strong and independent person who cares about helping people all around the world especially women and making sure everyone is healthy. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is still doing work today because of her. Melinda Gates is making a difference, in global health and womens empowerment. The Gates Foundation did a lot of things for people who are sick. They helped stop diseases like malaria, polio and HIV/AIDS from spreading. The Gates Foundation also made sure people in countries got the vaccines they needed. They helped people get water and a safe place to go to the bathroom. The Gates Foundation also did a lot to help women have babies in these countries. The Gates Foundation was very important, in all of this work.

Before Melinda did her charity work Melinda had a job at Microsoft. She was in charge of some things. She helped get some new products out to people. These products were things like Encarta and Publisher and Microsoft Bob.

After that Melinda took a break from the technology world in the middle of the 1990s. She wanted to spend time with her family and do some charity work. Then Melinda started to get involved in some important global work.

Melindas influence got even bigger after her divorce from Bill Gates in 2021. Melinda is still doing her charity work. Melinda is still very involved, in global policy efforts. In 2022 she said that she will give away most of her money to different things, not just through the Gates Foundation. She wants to help a lot of people and things with her money and the Gates Foundation is one way she will do this. The Gates Foundation is something she is already involved with.

In 2024 Melinda stepped down from her job at the Gates Foundation. This was a change for Melinda. She wanted to do her thing and help people around the world. Melinda really wants to help women and girls.

Today people think Melinda is one of the important philanthropic figures of the 21st century. She is still working hard to make the world a better place for the Gates Foundation and, for women and girls. Melinda is doing things for women and girls.

Bill Gates Divorce Settlement

The divorce between Melinda and Bill Gates was finalized in August 2021 after they were married for 27 years. This divorce is one of the most complicated divisions of assets that has ever happened. Melinda and Bill Gates did not have an agreement about what would happen to their money if they got divorced. So they had to divide up all of the money they had which’s a lot, between them. Melinda and Bill Gates had a lot of money in stocks and private investments. They also had a lot of money that they used to help people. They made an agreement, about how they would divide up all of their money. They did not tell anyone what this agreement said. Even though we do not know all of the details we do know that Melinda and Bill Gates had to tell some things to the government and this has helped us understand what happened to their money.

In the months after Bill Gates and his wife got divorced Bill Gates gave Melinda a lot of money from the shares of companies. He gave her shares from companies like Canadian National Railway, AutoNation, Coca-Cola FEMSA and Deere & Co. Bill Gates had these shares with his company called Cascade Investment. Before that Cascade Investment had all these shares. When Bill Gates gave Melinda these shares it meant that Melinda now had 9 percent of the public shares that Cascade Investment had before. Bill Gates gave Melinda shares from companies that were worth billions of dollars. Bill Gates and Melinda are now. Bill Gates is giving her the shares that he had, with Cascade Investment.

I think that some of Cascades assets were probably part of the divorce settlement too. We just do not know about these transactions because they were not made public. In October 2024 Cascade transferred shares in Canadian National Railway and AutoNation, to Melinda. She got these shares for free which means her portfolio of Canadian National Railway and AutoNation shares got even bigger.

The Gates family had always planned to give away a lot of their money to help people through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.. When it came to Melindas own money she did things a little differently. After she and Bill got divorced Melinda said she wanted to give away most of her money to lots of causes. She wanted to help women be stronger and improve health around the world. Melinda does not just want to give her money through the Gates Foundation. In May 2024 she officially left the foundation, which meant she was starting to do her thing when it came to helping others. Melinda Gates is now giving her money to the causes she cares about in her way.

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

In the year 2000 Melinda and Bill Gates started the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation became very big and important. It is one of the private groups that help people. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is based in Seattle. The main goals of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are to help people who’re poor make education better, in the United States give people in poor countries the medicine and healthcare they need and make sure men and women are treated equally. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation does a lot of work.

The Gates Foundation has done a lot of things for peoples health all around the world. They have helped pay for things that will get rid of polio fight against malaria and tuberculosis and make sure people have water and toilets. The Gates Foundation has also been a help, with getting vaccines to people everywhere especially when the world was dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic.

By the year 2018 people found out that Bill and Melinda had given away than 36 billion dollars of their own money to the foundation. The foundation now has a lot money because Bill and Melinda gave them more and other people also gave them money. There are people who’re, in charge of the foundation. These people are Bill Gates, Melinda French Gates and Warren Buffett. They make sure everything runs smoothly.

The Gates Cambridge Scholarship is one of the foundations well known programs. This program is at the University of Cambridge. It helps students from countries who are getting advanced degrees. These students want to make the world a better place for people.

The foundation has also done some projects, in the United States. They gave a lot of money to make schools better. They wanted to help teachers do their jobs better and fix school buildings. The Gates Cambridge Scholarship is a part of what the foundation does to support education.

In May 2024 Melinda stepped down from her role as co-chair of the foundation. This means Melinda is going to focus on Melindas charity work through new projects that are not part of the foundation. Melinda helped build the foundation. Now Melinda wants to do things on her own.

Recognition and Accolades

Melinda French Gates is a known person for the good things she does to help people. She works hard to make sure everyone is treated fairly and has the chances in life. Melinda French Gates and Bill Gates were given an award in 2002 for helping people who are not as lucky as others. This award showed that Melinda French Gates and Bill Gates are making a difference in the world by helping people who are sick and do not have a lot of money. In 2005 Time magazine said that Melinda French Gates and Bill Gates were the important people of the year. They shared this honor with Bono from the band U2 because they all work together to help people who’re poor and sick, in other countries. Melinda French Gates and Bill Gates do a lot of work to make the world a better place.

On May 4 2006 the couple got the Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation from Spain. This award was for the couples work to make education better reduce health problems around the world and pay for research. Later in 2006 Melinda got the Insignia of the Order of the Aztec Eagle from the government. This is the honor that Mexico gives to people from other countries. Melinda got this award because of her work to improve health and education, in Mexico. Bill also got an award it was the Placard of the Order of the Aztec Eagle.

Melinda is from Seattle. People in Seattle wanted to thank Melinda for all that she does for kids who’re sick. So they named a building after her at Seattle Childrens Hospital. This building is called the Melinda French Gates Ambulatory Care Building. They did this in 2006.

Melinda also helped raise a lot of money for Seattle Childrens Hospital. She was in charge of getting people to give money to the hospital. They got three hundred million dollars. They used this money to make the hospital bigger and better. They also used it to help kids who cannot pay for the care they need.. They used some of the money to try to find cures, for kids who are very sick. Melinda and the hospital want to help kids get better and find ways to make them healthy again.

In the year 2007 the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm gave Melinda a doctorate in medicine. The Karolinska Institute did this to recognize her work. She and Bill got degrees, from the University of Cambridge in the year 2009. Then in the year 2013 Melinda was honored by Duke University, the school she went to with a Doctor of Humane Letters.

This was because of her philanthropic leadership and the good things she has done for people. The University of Cambridge and Duke University are good schools and they gave Melinda and Bill these honorary degrees because they think Melinda and Bill are doing great things.

Melinda has been doing really since 2011. She is always on the list of the Worlds 100 Powerful Women in Forbes magazine. In fact she was number three in 2013. That was a year, for Melinda. She was also made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire. The University of California San Francisco gave her the UCSF Medal, which’s a really big deal.

In 2015 the government of India gave Melinda and Bill a special award. It is called the Padma Bhushan. This is the most important honor that India gives to its citizens. Melinda and Bill were very happy to get this award from the government of India. Melinda is a powerful woman and she gets a lot of recognition for her work.

In the year 2016 President Barack Obama gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to the couple. This is a big deal because it is the highest award that the United States gives to people who are not in the military. The couple got this award because of the things they have done to help people all around the world with their health and education.

The next year was pretty amazing for them too. They went to a ceremony in Paris. Got the Legion of Honour which is the highest award that France gives out.

Melinda has also gotten the Otto Hahn Peace Medal. She got this medal because of all the things she has done to help bring peace and fairness to the world. The couple and Melinda are really making a difference with their work, in health and education and also with their efforts to promote international peace and justice and that is why they got these awards. In the year 2017 she was ranked number 12 on Richtopias list of the 200 influential people who help others and Social Entrepreneurs from all, around the world.

Real Estate

Melinda and Bill Gates lived in a house in Medina, Washington. This house was really big. Had all the latest stuff. It was near Lake Washington. The house was called “Xanadu 2.0” by a lot of people. It was designed by two companies: Bohlin Cywinski Jackson and Cutler-Anderson Architects. Melinda and Bill Gates house was special because it was good, for the earth and had all the technology. The house was built into the side of a hill, which made it look like it was part of the landscape.

This house has a big swimming pool that is 60 feet long and it has music that you can hear when you are underwater. It also has a gym that is 2,500 square feet. The house has a library with a round ceiling and a secret bookcase that spins around. There is a room for eating and lots of extra rooms for guests. The house is high tech so you can change the lights and the music and the temperature in each room to what you like. In the year 2009 the estate was worth a lot of money $147.5 million and the taxes on the property were, than $1 million every year.

Following the divorce, the ownership status of the Medina estate was not publicly disclosed, and Melinda has kept details about her current residence largely private.