Four New Members Join Co-Chairs Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation appointed a board of trustees, with Strive Masiyiwa, Baroness Nemat (Minouche) Shafik, Thomas J. Tierney, and Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman joining co-chairs Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates as members.

The board members will work alongside Gates and French Gates, bringing independent and diverse perspectives to help strengthen the foundation’s governance.

Suzman announced the board members in the foundation’s inaugural annual letter. The letter highlights the foundation’s efforts to fight poverty and disease; its goal of creating a better, fairer world; and its commitment to listening to diverse perspectives and deepening engagement with partners and communities where its work is focused.

The board announcement comes at a time of unprecedented global challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic has slowed, halted, and even reversed hard-won gains in global health and development around the world. After nearly two decades of steady progress, tens of millions of people have been thrown back into poverty, childhood vaccination rates have dropped, and diseases from malaria to tuberculosis have resurged. Since January 2020, the Gates Foundation has committed more than $2 billion to the global COVID-19 response, with a focus on making sure support reaches marginalized communities as quickly and effectively as possible. The pandemic has had devastating impacts on these communities, and it will take many years for them to recover.

This governance change comes after the death in late 2020 of Bill Gates Sr., Bill Gates’ father, an honorary co-chair, and a long-time guiding voice at the foundation, as well as the