January 24, 2008 | Read Time: 2 minutes
Melinda Gates has long dreaded the spotlight. But today, at 43, she’s playing a bigger and more public role in the work of the foundation she helped to start, writes Fortune (January 21).
“I had always thought that when my youngest child started full-day school I’d step up,” Ms. Gates says. Now she is devoting more time to the work of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, up to 30 hours a week.
“As I thought about strong women of history, I realized that they stepped out in some way,” she says.
Growing up in a middle-class family in Dallas, Ms. Gates never dreamed that she’d be in a position to give away tens of billions of dollars. But in many ways she’s a natural for the role, writes the magazine.
Ms. Gates is well versed in the science and public policy surrounding the health problems her foundation seeks to solve. She and her husband discuss grant requests without notes in front of them because, she says, “you’d better have it in your head. That’s a good discipline.”
She also takes a holistic view of the foundation’s grant making, says the magazine. While Bill Gates is drawn to long-term, scientific solutions, Ms. Gates is focused on finding more-immediate ways to end suffering. “You can’t save kids just with vaccines,” she says. “I’d go into rural villages in India and think, ‘Okay, we saved this child. But the cows are defecating in the stream coming into the village. There are other things we need to be doing.’”
She brings a measured approach to the work, in contrast to her husband, who can sometimes lose his cool. Says Bono, the musician-humanitarian, of Mr. Gates: “Sometimes I call him Kill Bill. Lots of people like him — and I include myself — are enraged, and we sweep ourselves into a fury at the wanton loss of lives. We need a much slower pulse to help us be rational. Melinda is that pulse.”
Asked by the magazine if charges about the foundation’s bureaucracy are valid, she says, “You bet, some of it.” But, she adds, “years ago we got compliments about how fast we reviewed grants. Those grants were swift, but they were not all as effective as they could have been. I’d rather be a bit more methodical and effective.”
The article is available online.
