“The announcement is a surprise for many of us, but I don’t think it’s spur of the moment,” said Latanya Mapp, president and CEO of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.

French Gates had already helped cement a gender equity lens within the Gates Foundation’s programs to ensure it continues on past her departure, Mapp said. The first president of the foundation’s gender equity division was hired in 2020.

From 1994 through 2018, Bill and Melinda gifted about $US59.5 billion to the Seattle-based foundation, its website said.

Her last day at the foundation will be June 7.

“I am sorry to see Melinda leave, but I am sure she will have a huge impact in her future philanthropic work,” Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said in a post on X.

Melinda Gates, who has a net worth of $US11.3 billion according to Forbes, manages some of her investments and charitable work through her Pivotal Ventures. The investment company, founded in 2015, focuses on women and families.

The fate of the foundation’s leadership was thrown into question after the couple announced they were divorcing in May 2021. That July, they said they were setting a two-year deadline to decide whether they could work together, and that if they couldn’t, French Gates would receive money from Gates for her philanthropic work that’s separate from the foundation’s endowment.

In September 2022, French Gates said she was “completely committed” to the foundation and working with her ex-husband.

French Gates has her own charity called Pivotal Ventures, which she started in 2015. By the time the couple divorced, Pivotal had invested hundreds of millions of dollars in more than 150 organisations. It uses grants as well as venture capital to focus on empowering women, including getting more females into technology jobs and elected to public office, and advocating paid family leave.

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Bill Gates, 68, the former chief executive officer and co-founder of Microsoft, is the world’s fifth-richest person with a fortune of $US152.6 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, while French Gates is worth $US13.3 billion.

French Gates, through Pivotal, has also worked with MacKenzie Scott, who became one of the biggest philanthropists in history following her 2019 divorce from Amazon.com co-founder Jeff Bezos.

Reuters, Bloomberg, AP

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