William Henry Gates III is an American businessman best known for co-founding the software company Microsoft with his childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of chairman, chief executive officer (CEO), president, and chief software architect, while also being its largest individual shareholder until May 2014. He was a pioneer of the microcomputer revolution of the 1970s and 1980s.
Melinda French Gates is an American philanthropist and a former multimedia product developer and manager at Microsoft. Born and raised in Dallas, Texas, she graduated from Duke University and started working at Microsoft in 1987. Shortly afterwards, she began dating the company's co-founder and then-CEO Bill Gates, whom she married in 1994. In 2000, she and Gates co-founded the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the world's largest private charitable organization. The couple, who have three children together, divorced in 2021. In 2024, she resigned from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to pursue philanthropy independently, having received $12.5 billion for charitable work as part of her separation agreement.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) is an American private foundation founded by Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates. Based in Seattle, Washington, it was launched in 2000 and is reported to be the second largest charitable foundation in the world, holding $69 billion in assets as of 2020. The primary stated goals of the foundation are to enhance healthcare and reduce extreme poverty across the world, and to expand educational opportunities and access to information technology in the U.S. Key individuals of the foundation include Warren Buffett, chief executive officer Mark Suzman, and Michael Larson.
William Henry Gates II, better known as Bill Gates Sr., was an American attorney, philanthropist, and civic leader. He was the founder of the law firm Shidler McBroom & Gates, and also served as president of both the Seattle King County and Washington State Bar associations. He was the father of Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft.
The Wellcome Trust is a charitable foundation focused on health research based in London, United Kingdom. It was established in 1936 with legacies from the pharmaceutical magnate Henry Wellcome to fund research to improve human and animal health. The aim of the Trust is to "support science to solve the urgent health challenges facing everyone." It had a financial endowment of £29.1 billion in 2020, making it the fourth wealthiest charitable foundation in the world. In 2012, the Wellcome Trust was described by the Financial Times as the United Kingdom's largest provider of non-governmental funding for scientific research, and one of the largest providers in the world. According to their annual report, the Wellcome Trust spent GBP £1.1 billion on charitable activities across their 2019/2020 financial year. According to the OECD, the Wellcome Trust's financing for 2019 development increased by 22% to US$327 million.
Omidyar Network is a self-styled "philanthropic investment firm," composed of a foundation and an impact investment firm. Established in 2004 by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam, Omidyar Network has committed over US$1.5 billion to nonprofit organizations and for-profit companies across multiple investment areas. According to the OECD, Omidyar Network's financing for 2019 development increased by 10% to US$58.9 million.
Ecolab Inc. is an American corporation headquartered in Saint Paul, Minnesota. It develops and offers services, technology and systems that specialize in treatment, purification, cleaning and hygiene of water in a wide variety of applications. Founded as Economics Laboratory in 1923 by Merritt J. Osborn, it was eventually renamed "Ecolab" in 1986.
Acumen is a nonprofit impact investment fund based in the U.S. that focuses on investing in social enterprises that serve low-income individuals. Acumen was founded in April 2001 by Jacqueline Novogratz. It aims to demonstrate that small amounts of philanthropic capital, combined with business acumen, can result in thriving enterprises that serve vast numbers of the poor. Over the years, Acumen has invested $154.4 million in 167 companies and has had a successful track record in sourcing and executing investment opportunities in the clean energy, education, financial inclusion, health care and agriculture sectors.
Since 2004, Forbes, an American business magazine, has published an annual list of its ranking of the 100 most powerful women in the world. Edited by prominent Forbes journalists, including Moira Forbes, the list is compiled using various criteria such as visibility and economic impact. In 2023, the gauge was "money, media, impact and spheres of influence". The top 10 per year are listed below.
Sam Dryden was a thought leader and advocate for food and nutrition security, with a particular focus on small-holder farmer led agricultural development in Africa and Asia. Lately Dryden was a Fellow at Imperial College, working on a project to promote digital technologies that can catalyse sustainable agricultural transformation across the food system in Africa.
Cascade Investment, L.L.C. is an American holding company and private investment firm headquartered in Kirkland, Washington, United States. It is controlled by Bill Gates, and managed by Michael Larson. More than half of Gates's fortune is held in assets outside his holding of Microsoft shares. Cascade is the successor company to Dominion Income Management, the former investment vehicle for Gates's holdings, which was managed by convicted felon Andrew Evans.
Allan Golston is the president of the United States Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. He leads the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's five areas of strategy, policy and advocacy, and operations of a $600 million domestic program with $3.8 billion portfolio under management: K-12 Education, Post-Secondary Education, Technology Access, Special Initiatives, and Family Homelessness, Early Childhood Learning, and Community Grants in Washington State.
Michael Larson is an American businessman and investor. The founder and chief investment officer of Cascade Investment, he oversees all investment activities of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Bill Gates' personal fortune. He assumed the role in 1994.
The Bridgespan Group is a U.S. nonprofit organization headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts that provides management consulting to nonprofits and philanthropists. In addition to consulting, Bridgespan makes case studies freely available on its website and publications.
The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) is a not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) charitable organization established by the US Congress in 1990. Located in North Bethesda, MD, the FNIH raises private-sector funds, and creates and manages alliances with public and private institutions in support of the mission of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
Trevor Neilson is an American businessperson, investor, entrepreneur and philanthropist. He is the co-founder, chairman and CEO of WasteFuel, a company that produces renewable fuels using proven technologies to address the climate emergency and revolutionize mobility.
Grand Challenges Canada (GCC) is a Canadian nonprofit organization that employs a Grand Challenges model with the aim to fund solutions for health and economic problems in low-and middle-income countries and Canada.
Goalkeepers is an initiative launched by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2017 to bring together leaders from around the world to accelerate progress toward achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The initiative also provides reports and data flow charts over SDGs progress since 1990.
Richard D. Klausner is an American scientist who served as the 11th director of the National Cancer Institute of the United States.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute is a non-profit biotechnology organization founded with the aim of bringing technologies and strategies to bear on the main health problems of the poor in low-income countries. The Gates MRI was organized as a subsidiary of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation who funded it with a $273 million 4-year grant.
