Gates Foundation expands board following Bill, Melinda split

January 26th 2022

SEATTLE - The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced Wednesday it will add four members to its board of trustees, a first for the Seattle-based philanthropic giant whose decision making has been guided by very few hands since its incorporation in 2000.

The foundation said it would search for new trustees in July after its two co-chairs and trustees — Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates – announced their divorce.

Wednesday's announcement means the global charitable group will now have six people to guide its work and its $50 billion endowment. However, Gates and French Gates will continue to have additional authority as co-chairs of the foundation.

Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman wrote in his annual letter Wednesday he would be joining the board alongside Zimbabwean telecom billionaire Strive Masiyiwa, the African Union's COVID-19 vaccine envoy; Minouche Shafik, director of the London School of Economics and Political Science; and Thomas J. Tierney, co-founder and co-chair of The Bridgespan Group, the philanthropic consulting firm that's been an influential force behind MacKenzie Scott's unconventional multi-billion dollar donations.

"This obviously is a big milestone for the Gates Foundation," Suzman said in an interview with The Associated Press, adding the new group will help make the foundation's work "stronger, better and more informed."

Critics have long argued the foundation, whose funding for the World Health Organization nearly matches that of the U.S. government, has outsized influence and needs broader leadership. Suzman has said those calls didn't factor into the decision to expand the board. Instead, he wrote the changes were a response to Warren Buffett's resignation from the foundation board in June, and the death of Gates' father and honorary co-chair, Bill Gates Sr., in 2020.

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