Melinda French Gates to resign from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Melinda French Gates, the former wife of Microsoft co-found Bill Gates, on Monday announced that she will resign as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, effective next month.

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In a statement shared on social media, French Gates said her last day of work will be June 7, adding, “This is not a decision I came to lightly.”

“I am taking this step with full confidence that the foundation is in strong shape, with its extremely capable CEO Mark Suzman, the Executive Leadership Team, and an experienced board of trustees in place to ensure all its important work continues,” she said. “The time is right for me to move forward into the next chapter of my philanthropy.”

In a separate statement, Gates thanked French Gates “for her critical contributions to the Foundation from its very beginning.”

“As a co-founder and co-chair Melinda has been instrumental in shaping our strategies and initiatives, significantly impacting global health and gender equality,” he said.

He added, “I am sorry to see Melinda leave, but I am sure she will have a huge impact in her future philanthropic work.”

Suzman said Monday that French Gates “has new ideas about the role she wants to play in improving the lives of women and families in the U.S. and around the world.”

“After a difficult few years watching women’s rights rolled back in the U.S. and around the world, she wants to use this next chapter to focus specifically on altering that trajectory,” he said.

With her exit from the foundation, French Gates said she will get an additional $12.5 billion “to commit to my work on behalf of women and families.” She did not immediately say what that work might look like.

Gates and French Gates divorced in 2021 after 27 years of marriage but said that they would continue to work together at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The foundation, created in 2000 by merging the William H. Gates Foundation and the Gates Learning Foundation, bills itself as a nonprofit that fights “poverty, disease and inequity around the world.” It has spent more than $53 billion in the last 20 years in pursuit of that goal.

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