The search also brings the opportunity to add diversity to the board of trustees. In the statement, the foundation said the Gateses “expect to appoint individuals who will further enhance the diversity, experience, and expertise of the foundation’s leadership.”
“If they expand the board of trustees and bring on 10 old white men, I’m not going to be happy about that,” said Edgar Villanueva, founder of the Decolonizing Wealth Project.
‘Huge’ Giving
The additional $15 billion that Gates, 65, and French Gates pledged also means the foundation will have to pick up its pace of giving. Foundations are required by the Internal Revenue Service to annually give away 5% of their endowment, which for the Gates Foundation stood at roughly $50 billion before Wednesday’s announcement of the additional commitment.
The Gateses also previously set a deadline for the organization that requires it to spend all money within 20 years of their deaths.
“The amount of money that needs to get out the door in the next couple decades is huge,” said Soskis. “This is setting up the stage of what is likely to be one of the largest allocations of philanthropic funds in history.”
French Gates has played a major role in the foundation over the years, making her potential departure as a trustee more significant than Buffett’s departure. Buffett himself has said he played an “inactive role” at the foundation.
“Bill and Melinda both were very active in day to day activities at the foundation—they were often on campus working from their offices, meeting with program leaders, talking about issues,” said Greg Ratliff, who worked at the Gates Foundation for 10 years and is now senior vice president of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors.
There have been power struggles between Gates and French Gates in the past, which the latter details in her book “The Moment of Lift.”
“The first time Bill and I sat down to write our Annual Letter together, I thought we were going to kill each other,” she wrote in the book, published in 2019. “We both got angry.”
Since the divorce was announced, French Gates has received stock worth more than $3 billion from the Gates’s Cascade Investment, the entity that manages the duo’s combined fortune. At the time, it stood at $145 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Over the past decade, French Gates has been focused on gender equality and started her own philanthropy operation, Pivotal Ventures, that is largely devoted to the issue. The Gates Foundation made a $2.1 billion commitment to advance gender equality in June.
Now that there’s a chance she’ll leave the foundation, there’s the question of how she’d continue her independent philanthropic work. She could start her own foundation or ramp up her work at Pivotal.
In any case, the foundation she helped build will remain one of the world’s biggest charitable entities.
“The Gates Foundation’s years as a powerful philanthropic organization are not behind it,” Soskis said.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.