Melinda French Gates, Co-chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Founder, Pivotal Ventures 
Interviewer: Michal Lev-Ram, FORTUNE


Most Powerful Women 2022 - Disrupting Inequality

Melinda French Gates, Co-chair, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Founder, Pivotal Ventures 
Interviewer: Michal Lev-Ram, FORTUNE




Most Powerful Women 2022 - Disrupting Inequality



our first guest wants to take that power up a notch. She believes that we need to take a more holistic approach to empower more women at all levels of society and of all backgrounds. It's part of her mission to make the world a better, more equitable place. Please welcome back to the N. P. W. Stage, Melinda french Gates, co chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and founder of pivotal ventures for a conversation with my colleague. Okay welcome Melinda. Thank you. Um I know you're look everybody's taking your photo already. I love it. Good morning. So I know you're obviously you're out and about again you're traveling around. Um and I know you finally got to go to africa again after a long time of not being on the continent. Um you went to Rwanda and Senegal tell us a little bit about just what you saw and what your impressions are of where things progress for women, where things regressed globally abroad um and then we'll get to the U. S. Okay? So yes the reason I hadn't been out traveling obviously was because of covid and the pandemic. And finally this summer um I got to go out traveling again on the continent which I always learned because you talked to so many people, men and women and for me at least that experiential learning is how I learned and You know it's interesting. I mean you have to look globally at where are we as women and we are further behind than when I was at this conference. I think back in 2014 we are three generations away from gender equality in the world, that's my granddaughter granddaughters and to me that's just not acceptable. And so but when you go places like Senegal and Rwanda, you actually see I see the hope. So. I sat with a group of women who were creating businesses. They were part of an investment club and it was so interesting to hear them talk about they have these amazing businesses But how hard it was to get venture capital. 30% of businesses in Senegal are owned by women and yet 3% of venture capital moves to them. And I thought that's just like what I hear when I talk to women in Silicon Valley, less than 2% of venture capital goes to women led businesses from Silicon Valley. You go to Rwanda which I think I've been to at least a half a dozen times now. Maybe more. So interesting to see what's happened because president Kagame after the genocide put in a quota that said 30% of our parliament will be women today, 60% of parliament are women. And they will tell you and the men will tell you that it has changed society. The way they view women. The head of the Kigali Bank, the most powerful black bank, the largest bank in Rwanda is headed by a woman. And so I see changes happening but we're not getting them quickly enough and we're not getting them globally quickly enough around the world. So let's let's pivot to the U. S. And I think obviously everybody is very familiar with the Gates Foundation. You also you found it and um and share pivotal ventures which is really focused on the U. S. And advancing women and people of color here. Um, last time you were here in 2014, you were talking to us about family planning summit in London, you'd raised billions of dollars for contraceptives for distribution in the developing world and fast forward to today and where we're sitting here um this summer we saw the constitutional right to abortion being struck down by the Supreme Court. There's fear that contraceptives are in in risk in certain states. Um and that there's going to be more restrictions there. So given everything that you know globally that you've seen about the correlation of reproductive rights to sort of the broader advancement of women. Um what do you see ahead here? What are we, what are we in for? So I think we let me just talk to stand back from and talk at large. We have so long as the development community which I've been part of for over 20 years through the Gates foundation. We've so long for long talked about empowering women and I think we just need to stop and say no, no, no. We have to make sure women have their full power in society. What do I mean by that? I mean that in their homes and communities and at the very top levels of society that women can control resources, make decisions and shape policies and perspectives. I am convinced that roe v wade would not have been rolled back. You know, a law for women's health on the books for almost 50 years. I was in Rwanda frankly when that got announced and people in Rwanda were just shocked like how can the U. S. Role something like that back? Had the Supreme Court been put there by women? I don't think that decision would have would have happened. And so, you know, we keep talking in Congress about, oh isn't it great, we get another one or 2% of our congressional leaders are women, Well it's Good, but until we get to 50% being women, we don't have a single woman in the Senate who's black, not a single woman. And yet I look out in society and there are a lot of amazing black women, so we can't accept that anymore. We have to make sure women get into seats of power and take their power. And so that is what I'm committing my life to do both through the Foundation globally and pivotal ventures in the United States. So, you know, I love this concept, not just putting women on the agenda, but women making the agenda. Is that politics political or or does it just across the board. How do you just explain that to us? What does that mean? So I grew up in a household where my mom always said to me and my sister as a young girl, set your own agenda or somebody else will. And um I see it as in politics because that's where our public policy gets made. I think women need to be equal across the top. I think in media because that's who tells our stories and shapes our perspective. Look at the difference since Shonda Rhimes has been writing for television or Ava Duvernay with the movie she's making, I think finance because finance, money is power and so you need to have women at the top of financial institutions. I notice Shonda is going to speak later and I think you need to have women at the top and computer science because I look at what's happening. You know, my background is computer science and economics, but I look at the bias being baked into artificial intelligence and I think, oh my gosh, this is just like the US constitution, look what happened. Women and minorities weren't represented there and we're still fighting now to have true equality. You can't have the tech sector which is so prevalent in our lives run by essentially a small group of white men. So midterms are coming up, what is what is your approach and what are the initiatives that you're involved in and pivotal of course when it comes to specifically the political side, Well, I'm everything I do and this is true, both at pivotal ventures and at the Foundation, we invest in partners. And so I'm investing in a number of partners who and I am also putting directly money into candidates elections. But I'm in partners who are looking at how do we get the harassment down in the system? How do we help women and people are L G B T Q fight the harassment in the system? That's a big reason women don't run for office. And how do we make sure their political campaigns are funded at the same level as a man because it is expensive to run for office. It's hard to run for office. So the partners, I'm working through those, that is our big agenda on the political front, I want to ask you also, you know, you you're such an optimist and yet you've seen and talked to so many people who are in such hard positions and you see this, you know, rollback of rights in in this country. What is it that gives you that sense of optimism and hope as you do your work. Um and have you always been an optimist? I think I've probably always been an optimist. I believe in human beings, we are the ones that change the world and I believe in human ingenuity. And so I think when we talk about the real things going on society, unpaid labor, you know, we expect women to care for Children de facto right. And usually for the elderly, that's over 50 million caregivers in our country. And yet we don't create the right policies so they can have affordable quality child care so they can care for the Children and have a job. What I see though is more people talking out about it. We got this close to a paid family medical leave law in our country at the federal level. Those partners aren't going away, I'm not going away. We're gonna keep fighting that. It was one white man that didn't get that passed. Um So I've just seen a Kadre now of women and like minded men saying this shouldn't be, society is going to be better off. The last thing I'll say just about this specifically is, you know, again, so often the women's issue is the nice to do issue the side issue, the backburner issue. I hear this essentially from prime ministers and presidents when I go places like the U. N. Or I meet with them. But you know, let's talk economics, we care economics. If women had the same lifetime earnings of men around the world, we'd add 100 and $70 trillion to the global GDP. So it also just makes economic sense. And so I think it takes all of us to talk about all the factors and then push them forward. And I see women like in this room who are in positions of power are changing things inside of their companies. And I see men like minded men saying, look I know great female scientists, let's make sure that we keep the resume pool open till we get more female scientists on the list, not just white male scientists before we hire. I just I see society changing and we just need to keep pushing because it is humans and human ingenuity that changes society. So I know I mentioned all of the hardships that you've seen across the world and that that you've dedicated yourself to. Um, you had your own set of personal challenges over the last few years. And and definitely since we we saw you here, um, I shared with you earlier that when I got divorced nobody other than my friends and family care, it wasn't, you know, I'm not a public person, like I cannot imagine going through that um more or less in in in the spotlight. And I'm curious how has it changed you if at all um as a leader as you go around and you talk to women across the world, has it changed your perspective? I think what it has taught me is something I had always longed to do, which is to be my most authentic self in every place I show up. And it's funny we have, you know, society is changing. We have said society up essentially in the U. S. So that men, you know kind of went off to work and the women stayed home and cared for the Children. That is completely flipped now right? Most um couples who are partnered, 52% have dual incomes. And so when I think about what we used to say, even to men in the workforce, you kinda you went into the workforce and you talked about work, you didn't talk about your personal life, there has to be boundaries around that. Of course, I know people go into work and you want you bring your whole self to work. You know, you do want to talk a bit about your kids and what's important to you and what's important in society. So I just feel unleashed to do that all the more now and to use both places, both the foundation to forward the agenda I believe in and that we believe in as a foundation and the agenda that I care about in the United States through globally through the Foundation and through pivotal ventures really working on the inequities that happen in this country. Um I know that your your co chairing, by the way, if I ask for a show of hands, I'm not gonna do this, but I'm sure there are other women here who have been divorced, but I don't think that we get other any hands up. If I ask, do you co chair a billion multi billion dollar foundation with your ex husband. So how is that going? Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know, I do realize I'm charting unchartered waters, um but I will say that we are both deeply committed to that institution, look my values are baked into that institution and so what I know is that I have to show up as my best self every single day, um I was saying backstage just briefly, I saw Esther Perel, who I know is going to speak on this stage, I just finished her master class about relationships and one of the things she talks about is power, right? So I both, I'm gonna have, I both have a relationship with my former husband at work and hopefully eventually I'll have a relationship, you know personally with somebody outside of work, but we have to think about power inside of a relationship and how do you share that and share that collaboratively, and so I spend a little more time thinking about that today. But the other thing I will say at the Foundation is we have an amazing board, now we have incredible governance and so I also know it's possible. Yeah, and that actually brings me to my next question. Um Bill Gates made some headlines just recently at a philanthropy conference talking about how the foundation is not going to live beyond the next 25 years, or what you know. I realized this was this was baked into sort of your original intention, it sounds like, but what is that all about? Like explain to us how this works and what your, what it says about your approach to philanthropy that this was not meant to be, you know, your your name, put on something to live for all eternity, you want to have Impact in your lifetime, right? So first of all, just to be clear, the governance documents of the foundation, which I'm a signatory co signature on, I'm a co chair say that it will last till 20 years after the death of the last of us. Got it. So that is the current stated plan. Um but the intention is that the resources that have been amassed from Microsoft that have ended up for whatever reason in both of our hands, that those resources will return to society. And both he and I have thought for a long time we can't predict the problems 100 years from now, we couldn't have predict some of the things that happened in the last five years. So we want to solve today's problems and what we know is that they're enormous and they're even bigger frankly post pandemic because of both the health shocks. But really the economic scarring one for instance, there is, you know, there are many more people this year that will go hungry than last year because of the fuel and fertilizer and food crisis coming out of the Ukraine war, 100 and 50 million more women will go hungry than men. So what I, my job as a coach er, is to say, okay, thus what do we do about it? So we don't just work on hunger at large, but we make sure that food and nutritious food gets into women's hands because guess what? Women not only feed themselves, but they decide who eats in the family and what they eat. Okay? And thank you for clarifying, I assume he wasn't, you know, prophesying a future demise, right? Like that's not something that an ai No, no, I was thinking something and said it before. We have made a decision. All right, do we have a question for Melinda in the audience? A least we'll bring a microphone over to you and if you could introduce yourself. Hi Elise Johnson, Ceo, vital voices. Thank you Melinda for using your platform and your full force and I'm so thrilled to have your most authentic power on these issues. But as you know, it's all about money. Women can't get to power without the money. And we know that only 2% of development charitable giving goes to women and women's organizations. You obviously have, you are not in that category. You have done far more. But how do we get the rest of, you know, whether it's corporate foundations, private foundations to do the same to follow suit and to realize this is the issue of our lifetime. I think we all have to use our voices. I think we have to keep pushing. I think you form grassroots organizations like moms rising saying this is what's right. Uh, Reshma here, she has mom's marshall plan. I think you get inside of corporations, corporations starting to say this is what's right for our employees, not just in the U. S. But globally. And I think it's also by demonstrating so part of the reason I'm using my capital and being so vociferous about it and you're seeing some other women do that who have means in their hands. Like were were unbelievably privileged to have these these means in our hands. You see them living their values in society. And I think by doing that, then you see others follow, but it's gonna take all of us. This is, you know, we're pushing against barriers that are baked into society writ large and um, we have to name and speak our truth if we're going to change that. Um, I wanna end here by throwing out some numbers. Um, since the Gates Foundation started more than two decades ago, you provided more than $60 billion 50 billion. And last year you committed an additional 50 billion collectively. Um, and you've also committed one billion of your money to pivotal. These are astounding numbers. The level of impact that these numbers have is just incredible. And I just want to hear from you. I mean, you touched on this already, but what else can women in the room do today, whether it's in this country or they're looking you know, more globally? How do they have impact? Okay, so let me just add one thing to what you said about the amount of money that is not just the resources from Microsoft, that is also warren Buffett's collectively, I'm not correct you, I'm just saying it's really important for us to recognize that because he believes in women having their full power and he has for a long time. So what I would say to all of you collectively is wherever you sit inside a corporation. If your policy maker, if you're a mom who works empower people around you use your resources, use your voice, vote for the right people who you think should be at the top, get others to vote, bring young women along with you, Any of us that have platforms, we need to open them to other leaders, global leaders, female leaders, young women coming up behind us, this is not a one generation and it's going to solve this problem, it's gonna take all of us to move forward in the world. Thank you so much, Melinda. Thank you