Hi, I'm Ellen Pompeo and welcome to tell me today. I'm sitting down with Melinda French

Gates. Melinda is a philanthropist, a business woman, and a global advocate for women and

girls. Through her work at her foundation for the last two decades, she has seen firsthand

that empowering women and girls can bring about transformational improvements in the health

and prosperity of families, communities, and societies. Her work has led her to increasingly

focus on gender equity as a path to meaningful change. I had a great conversation with her.

We talked about a lot of things. We talked about Christmas because this was before Christmas,

so we talked about some fun things. It's a great ending to this podcast, which I won't

give away. You have to listen to the whole thing, something I didn't even know was going

to happen. We talked about her work. We talked about life and the humanity in all of us.

I hope you enjoy my conversation with Melinda French Gates. I loved every minute of

it.

Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me, Ellen. Of course. So you just said

you're ready for the holidays. Tell me. Well, this is the time of year where at least for

me, I'm finishing up a lot of work before the end of the year with the foundation and

my company Pivotal Ventures. And then I do what's called close the door for the holidays.

We really as a family take about two weeks off. And Christmas is one of my favorite times

of year has been since I was a child. So I go full out. Nice. So do you go pick out your

tree? I don't pick out my tree myself, but I have very special ornaments that I like to have

on the tree in very special places. Okay. So I love to go pick out the tree with the kids.

It's a whole thing. And we go to one place every year. We like to support this one company.

They come down from Washington state. And they bring their trees. They were kind enough.

...