Charitable foundation gets new Microsoft
man
Bill Gates has poached another Microsoft person to lead his
charity.
Jeff Raikes, 50, a former top executive at Redmond, will be the Bill
& Melinda Gates Foundation's second leader since its inception in 1997. He is replacing Patty Stonesifer, another former Microsoft exec and friend
of Bill and Melinda Gates, who announced in February that she would step down.
Raikes is refusing media interviews in order to give him 100 days of
solitude to focus on his new job. He has penned a press release saying that he
is thrilled to be joining the Gates Foundation. But then again people usually
are on their first few days.
Raikes has known Gates since starting at
Microsoft in 1991. In his press release he said he expects some of his biggest
challenges to be getting up to speed as quickly as possible and managing the
foundation's rapid growth.
