Melinda French Gates resigns from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

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CNN
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Melinda French Gates announced Monday that she will resign as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which she helped lead since 2000.

As part of her separation agreement from estranged husband Bill Gates, French Gates said she would receive an additional $12.5 billion for her charitable work. French Gates said she plans to focus her donations on groups focused on women and families.

“This is not a decision I took lightly,” she said in a statement. posted on. “I am immensely proud of the foundations Bill and I have built together and the extraordinary work they are doing to combat inequality around the world. »

French Gates said she plans to leave the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation on June 7 and will share more about her future charitable plans in the near future.

The organization will change its name to the Gates Foundation, and Bill Gates will become its sole president, the foundation’s CEO, Mark Suzman, announced Monday.

“I’m sorry to see Melinda go, but I’m sure she will have a huge impact on his future philanthropic work,” Bill Gates wrote in a separate statement Monday, also posted on.

“Looking forward, I remain fully committed to the work of the Foundation in all of our strategies and to realizing the opportunities we have to continue to improve the lives of millions of people around the world,” he wrote .

The release of French Gates had been announced for several years. Bill Gates and French Gates announced their divorce in May 2021. They said at the time that they would give each other a sort of trial period until 2023 to determine whether they could continue working together to oversee their massive charitable foundation. .

Suzman announced in July 2021 an emergency plan “to ensure the continuity of the foundation’s work.”

“If after two years either decides that they cannot continue to work together as co-chairs, French Gates will resign as co-chair and director,” Suzman said.

Bill Gates will retain control and, essentially, buy French Gates out of the foundation, Suzman said at the time. French Gates would receive “personal resources” from Gates for his own philanthropic work – resources that would be “completely separate from the foundation’s endowment.”

The foundation did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.

This is a developing story and will be updated.