Patty Stonesifer – A Tech Visionary and a True Philanthropist

The founding CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and most recently president and CEO of the Washington, DC nonprofit Martha’s Table, Patty Stonesifer has spent her career leading organizations designed to make the world a better place. She has served as an advisor to a wide range of government, corporate, and nonprofit leaders, helping them craft programs centered on reducing inequality and creating a stronger social fabric.

An accidental executive

Stonesifer once described herself as an “accidental tech executive.” Seeing a better opportunity for raising her children, she left her job managing a computer book publishing company in Indianapolis to join a fledgling company in Seattle called Microsoft. She was not yet 30 years old. The entire Microsoft team was unprepared for how quickly things took off, and Stonesifer soon found herself an upper executive—and the top-ranking woman—in charge, at various times, of worldwide tech support, consumer products, and the development of new media, including the MSNBC television network and the digital encyclopedia Encarta.

Building a global force for good

At 40, Stonesifer had achieved everything she’d wanted to at Microsoft, and left to consult for DreamWorks SKG and other tech companies. Soon, Bill Gates approached her with another idea: He had decided to start a foundation and wanted her help. She leapt at the chance to help Bill and his wife, Melinda, achieve their dream of leaving a lasting, positive impact on the world. In setting up the Gates’ charitable foundation, the three friends were driven by their shared understanding that great success in life needs to be paired with a commitment to giving back to society in ways that truly make a difference. As Stonesifer once remembered Bill Gates telling her, a person only needs so many pairs of socks. Without taking a salary, Stonesifer first headed the Gates Library Foundation, which brought enhanced computer access to underserved communities through grants to local public libraries. (Interestingly, Stonesifer has served on the corporate board of Amazon.com since 1997, and the company’s stock grants have enabled her to focus on giving her time to nonprofit efforts.) After spending hundreds of millions of dollars to connect public libraries to the Internet, helping bridge the “digital divide,” the Gates Foundation began to strongly advocate for the value of public libraries as repositories of information and community gathering places.

Expanding the promise, staying grounded

In 1999, Bill and Melinda Gates donated $16 billion to the foundation. With Stonesifer continuing to volunteer as CEO, the newly renamed Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation folded in the library project, and by 2006 had solidified what would become its long-term goals in education, libraries, global health, and causes in the Pacific Northwest. During her 11 years at the helm of the foundation, Stonesifer refused any compensation. She considered it a privilege to lead the world’s most impactful philanthropic organization. Her leadership gave the foundation the direction and stability it needed to achieve its goal: reducing inequality around the world. The foundation has not only elevated literacy in critically under-resourced communities, but it has saved lives through a highly effective program of immunizations and other healthcare initiatives. At the conclusion of Stonesifer’s tenure, the foundation had grown to encompass an almost $40 billion endowment. She viewed her work there as the fulfillment of her “special purpose.” Bill Gates credited her with making his vision a reality.

A lasting commitment to the public good

In 2008, when Stonesifer felt she was ready to transition to other projects, Bill Gates elected to move away from the business side of his enterprises and head the foundation full time. Meanwhile, Stonesifer accepted board positions with leading charitable and cultural institutions. A board member of the Smithsonian since 2001, she chaired its board of regents from 2009 to 2012. She has served as a board member for GAVI and as a member of the US delegation to the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on HIV/AIDS. In 2010, President Barack Obama appointed her to chair the White House Council for Community Solutions.

Revitalizing forgotten communities

By 2013, Stonesifer had moved to Washington, DC, and accepted the unsalaried position of president and CEO of Martha’s Table. Since the 1970s, the nonprofit has worked to bring hot meals, social service assistance, and community to some of the area’s most marginalized neighborhoods. Under Stonesifer’s direction, Martha’s Table stepped up its outreach to include entire families, enhancing early childhood education, childcare, and after-school programs to meet the needs of struggling parents. She led the organization in a buildout of dozens of Joyful Food Markets, which are pop-up fresh-food markets that address food insecurity. Stonesifer remained in this role until 2018.

A commitment to lifelong learning—and unlearning

At a 2017 event celebrating the power of nonprofits, Stonesifer told the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) how her work with Martha’s Table dovetailed with her passion for helping create positive personal and societal transformation. She also discussed working with the Gates Foundation, noting that she and the Gates’ had to undergo a transformation in their thinking. All were technocrats who “thought the product was the solution.” They realized that they needed to become more systems-focused and learn to work with state, local, and national governments to successfully fight diseases such as polio and HIV/AIDS. In her AEI interview, Stonesifer summed up her approach: “Be humble enough to learn how to become a changemaker.”