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By STEPHANIE STROM
The New York Times
Patty Stonesifer, who started the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation above a pizza parlor seven years ago and has overseen its growth into the world's largest philanthropic institution, said Wednesday that she would step down by the end of the year.
Her decision marks a major turning point for the foundation, which has operated largely as a family foundation overseen by Stonesifer, a friend and confidante of Bill Gates, a founder of Microsoft.
The arrival of a new chief executive, possibly an outsider, is the last step in its transition to a more orthodox institutional structure, with clearly defined divisions knit together by a central management team that Stonesifer has assembled in the past two years.
With $37 billion in assets, the foundation is nearly four times the size of the next largest one, the Ford Foundation. It dispenses more than $3 billion annually, more than five times the amount distributed by the Ford Foundation, and will have some 800 employees by the end of the year.
"This job is mind-boggling because it requires a wholly different skill set than any other job in the philanthropic world," said Harvey Dale, a professor of philanthropy and nonprofit law at New York University. "It's an enormous challenge."
But Stonesifer, 51, who has worked for a dollar a year after earning millions as a senior executive at Microsoft, said she was comfortable stepping down now because the foundation has firmly established strategies for achieving its primary goals of improving health, education and nutrition around the world.
"It's the right time," Stonesifer said. "We have a lot of momentum now, our strategies are in place, and it's time to take the organization to the next level where we deliver on those strategies."
Finding a replacement for Stonesifer, who is married to political columnist Michael Kinsley, will be a challenge because no one else has ever led a foundation of its size and scale of ambition. The biggest goal for the Gateses is to find a vaccine that will prevent AIDS, but they also hope to eradicate malaria, spark an agricultural revolution in Africa and ensure that every child in the United States has access to a good education.
"She's been an amazing culture keeper, not only in terms of selecting the more than 500 people we now have but also in creating a structure to keep that culture in place," Melinda Gates said.
Stonesifer's departure comes as the Gateses are increasing the time they spend on foundation matters. Melinda Gates devotes roughly half her time to foundation affairs, and her husband will turn the bulk of his attention to the foundation by Sept. 1, when he relinquishes some of his control over Microsoft.
The foundation is known for its insistence on an unprecedented level of continuing evaluation of its programs.
For example, Melinda Gates gets a "momentum" report each month that summarizes the foundation's achievements and activities, and the foundation is working to publish a form of its internal progress reports on its Web site. It uses the information in those reports to win government support for its programs around the globe, where Bill and Melinda Gates and the foundation's executive are often greeted with more ceremony than heads of state.
Despite the job's difficulties, many are expected to apply.
"The phone will be ringing off the hook," said Allan Golston, president of the foundation's U.S. programs, which range from improving education to reducing homelessness in Washington state.
Golston, who was one of the first people Stonesifer hired and served for many years as the foundation's chief administrative officer, could be a candidate, though he did not say whether he would apply.
Similarly, Sylvia Mathews Burwell, head of its global-development program, could be a contender for the job. A former Clinton administration official, she was hired early to serve as Stonesifer's second in command.
Bill Gates said the foundation planned to do a full external search for a successor. "It will be interesting to meet these people," he said. "It may be difficult to tell some people 'no' who may think they should have the job."
It is unlikely, however, that any future executive will have the personal relationship Stonesifer has had with the Gates family and with Warren Buffett, the billionaire who pledged the bulk of his fortune to the Gates Foundation in 2006 and is a foundation trustee.
Stonesifer, the daughter of an Indianapolis car salesman, is unassuming. Her speech is punctuated with a mixture of technological terms and homespun exclamations, such as the "holy cow!" she uttered on learning of the Buffett gift.
That pronouncement spawned the Holy Cow award, an internal award passed from one staff member to another each month for work above and beyond the call of duty. Small stuffed toy cows are scattered around foundation offices.
She will assist in selecting her successor, she said, and plans to maintain ties with the foundation, perhaps taking on a particular project.
"I'd like to get my hands dirty again," Stonesifer said.
Copyright © 2008 The Seattle Times Company
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