A dozen years ago, Melinda French Gates made a modest-sounding request of her then husband, Bill: she wanted to co-author the annual letter for the charitable foundation they had co-founded. He rebuffed her. But he did eventually agree to include an essay from his wife alongside his letter. Two years later she had been promoted to co-author.
This week French Gates achieved full emancipation: three years after divorcing Gates, she announced she was cutting ties with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, whose $59.5bn endowment and $7bn in annual grants makes it not just a whale among minnows in the philanthropic world but a veritable ocean unto itself.
As part of a previously negotiated separation agreement, Gates will give his ex-wife $12.5bn to pursue her own philanthropic passion: uplifting women and girls around the world. But even before this week’s news, French Gates had already emerged from her former husband’s shadow to become one of the most influential figures in global philanthropy.