Gates Foundation Names New CEO, Plucked From Microsoft Ranks

SEATTLE — The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation said yesterday that Microsoft Corp. executive Jeff Raikes will take over in September as chief executive of the world's largest charitable foundation.

The foundation has been looking for a new leader since the current chief executive, Patty Stonesifer, announced in February that she would step down.

Until earlier this year, Mr. Raikes was president of Microsoft's business software division, responsible for such things as the Office software suite, Microsoft's server software and applications that help businesses track customers and business processes.

In the past decade, the Gates Foundation has given away more than $16 billion, mostly in global health, global development, and American education.

Mr. Raikes will be the foundation's second leader since its inception in 1997. He has much in common with Ms. Stonesifer, another former Microsoft executive and friend of Bill and Melinda Gates, the co-chairs of their family foundation, which now has more than 500 employees and an endowment of $37.3 billion.

"I'm absolutely thrilled to be joining the Gates Foundation," Mr. Raikes said yesterday. "This is truly a dream job."

Mr. Raikes, 49, who announced in January he was retiring from Microsoft in September, said he thought before Mr. Stonesifer's announcement that he would like to play a role in the foundation's future but was unsure what he would like to do.

He has been intrigued by the foundation's efforts to spark a "green revolution" in Africa and before applying for the CEO job thought he might used his retirement years to get involved in agribusiness or education.

He said his 27 years of experience at Microsoft and his volunteer work with various nonprofit organizations give him many of the skills he will need to run the foundation. But he acknowledged he has much to learn.

"At Microsoft, the magic of software is used to take on very interesting challenges. Here, you have a similar situation, where the use of technology ... and systems thinking is used to take on very complex problems in society," Raikes said.