Melinda Gates

I find Melinda French Gates far more interesting than the billionaire's-ex-wife framing allows. She earned a computer science degree and an MBA at Duke, then shipped products at Microsoft in the late eighties when few women did, and she brought that same engineer's discipline to philanthropy, measuring outcomes instead of just signing checks. What I respect most is the post-divorce chapter: she kept her own name on the work and doubled down on women's health and economic power. Time honored her in 2005, but to my eye her real influence has only grown since she started operating solo.

Name (English)

Melinda Gates

Name (Japanese)

メリンダ・フレンチ・ゲイツ

Reading

めりんだ・ふれんち・げいつ

Born

August 15, 1964 (age 61)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Leo / Dragon

Origin

Dallas, Texas, United States

Occupation

businessperson / patron of the arts / philanthropist / founder / entrepreneur

University

Duke University

Awards & achievements

• 2002 Jefferson Awards for Public Service
• 2005 Time Person of the Year
• 2009 honorary doctorate from the University of Cambridge
• 2013 honorary doctor of the Duke University
• 2013 Forbes list of The World's 100 Most Powerful Women
• Padma Bhushan
• 2014 Chatham House Prize

Motto

Private

• Official sitehttp://www.gatesfoundation.org/Pages/home.aspx
• Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/melindafrenchgates/
• Xhttps://x.com/melindagates
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%A1%E3%83%AA%E3%83%B3%E3%83%80%E3%83%BB%E3%82%B2%E3%82%A4%E3%83%84

Tags

• Texas
• businessperson
• patron of the arts
• philanthropist

Last updated

2026-06-11

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.