Women's History Month intends to honor, inspire, educate, unite and promote women in the face of forces intent on subjugating and silencing them. It is about those who overcame overt and imbedded assumptions and prejudice to be their best selves. RGB said it well:
“I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.”
DAY 25: MELINDA GATES
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Few women have had the extensive wealth, resources, and business acumen of Melinda Gates. This American Philanthropist has been consistently ranked in the Top 10 of the world's most powerful women by Forbes since 2011.
Melinda leveraged her degrees in computer science and economics, and a masters in business, to quickly rise through the ranks of Microsoft. She was responsible for the development of many Microsoft products, including Word, Publisher, and Expedia.
In 2006, she left this role and others to focus on philanthropic projects under the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Over $59B has been contributed by the world's largest charitable organization to enhance healthcare, reduce extreme poverty, expand educational opportunities, and improve access to technology.
In 2105, she founded Pivotal Ventures to organize, identify and implement solutions to problems affecting U.S. women and their families. Action for Women's Health launched in 2024 to fund grants for women's health initiatives.
She received $12.5B in 2021 as part of her divorce settlement to fund independent charitable work.
I remember hearing an interview with her a number of years ago about the many successful things the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation had done. When asked what their most difficult challenge faced was, she cited uplifting education. She said that education standards and criteria were so different across states, counties, cities and districts, that it almost wouldn't matter how much more money and resource they poured into it.
Smart, savvy, and deeply committed to elevating women's opportunities to fairly compete in the workplace. The same philosophy has been at the cornerstone of my mentoring and tutoring work.