Susan Desmond-Hellmann was not looking to land the biggest job in philanthropy when she arrived at the Lake Washington mansion of Bill and Melinda Gates on Halloween night.
The oncologist and chancellor of the University of California at San Francisco had been approached about becoming chief executive of the Gates Foundation after Jeff Raikes announced in September his plans to retire. But she still had her doubts.
“They were juggling their kids and me and all that we were talking about,” Dr. Desmond-Hellmann said in an interview. “And I was going through in my mind how wonderful things were at UCSF, how much progress we had made, how gut-wrenching it would be to leave.”
But then the Microsoft billionaire and his wife “started telling me about why they started the foundation and what they hoped to achieve in the world.”
“Listening to them talk about their passion and why they spend time doing this really resonated,” she said. “So I went home and told my husband.”
She was taking the job.
“Although I wasn’t looking for a different job, given the mission and the incredible leadership of Bill and Melinda, I felt I couldn’t say no,” she said.
‘A Good Fit’
Dr. Desmond-Hellmann, 56, will become chief executive of the world’s largest philanthropy in May. She will be the Gates Foundation’s third leader and the first who is not a former Microsoft executive.
While the native of Reno, Nev., lacks management experience at a foundation, several experts say her medical, scientific, and higher-education credentials will give her the skills she needs to run the $36.4-billion foundation.
Brad Smith, chief executive of the Foundation Center, said Dr. Desmond-Hellmann’s lack of formal foundation experience should not be a problem. “No one comes into these jobs with 100 percent of the skills they need,” he said.
“The learning curve for her will be in the business of philanthropy,” he said. “She’s clearly a good fit for the program agenda at the Gates Foundation.” She is certainly no stranger to the Gates Foundation’s operations.
She has served on the foundation’s scientific advisory council since 2012. And since 2009, when she became chancellor, the foundation has awarded $68.9-million in grants to her university, according to the Gates Foundation’s grants database.
Before her work at the university, she was Genentech’s president of product development, “where she led the development and introduction of two of the first gene-targeted therapies for cancer, Avastin and Herceptin,” according to a statement announcing her new position. She worked at the pharmaceutical company for 14 years.
She said her experience as a leader and manager at Genentech and the university have adequately prepared her for her new job.
“There’s never a perfect way to get ready for a job that is as broad and complex as this role,” she said. But, she noted, she already has some important qualifications: She knows how to manage “very talented people who are technical experts in their fields, both in biotech and in higher education,” and has had to become
adept at working with government regulators in the United States and internationally.
She often appears on national lists of influential scientists and biotech leaders.
She and her husband, Nicholas Hellmann, spent two years treating patients in Uganda in the late 1980s, according to a 2011 profile in The New York Times. Dr. Hellmann is executive vice president for medical and scientific affairs at the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation.
Reacher Broader
Emmett Carson, chief executive of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, said he is pleased that the Gates Foundation “reached outside the normal suspects” to find a new leader.
“She seems to be the person well suited for the programs and initiatives that Gates has invested enormous resources in,” Mr. Carson said. “It’s nice when you see an institution that has a defined scope of work select an individual who has in their background that skill set.”
Foundations, he said, need to be encouraged to hire leaders with diverse perspectives.
In her new job, Dr. Desmond-Hellmann may well become one of the highest-paid female chief executives of a nonprofit. Mr. Raikes made $975,000, according to the most recent compensation survey available. The foundation and Dr. Desmond-Hellmann did not disclose her salary, but if she makes close to what Mr. Raikes earns, she will join a very select group of female leaders who are the ranks of the best paid. Of the 118 big nonprofits that provided 2012 data for The Chronicle’s executive-compensation survey, only two women were among the 20 highest paid. She earned $462,000 at the university, and according to news reports is independently wealthy from her time at Genetech.
No Big Shifts Likely
Her selection is also notable because she is not a former Microsoft executive.
The outgoing chief executive, Jeff Raikes, and his predecessor, Patty Stonesifer, were both high-level executives at the company that Mr. Gates co-founded, before they assumed roles heading his family foundation, which supports global health and education.
During Mr. Raikes’s tenure, the value of the foundation’s grants from 2008 to 2012 increased 21 percent, from $2.8-billion to $3.4-billion, according to The Chronicle’s survey of large private grant makers.
In an interview with The Chronicle in November, Mr. Raikes said his successor “will inherit a lot of momentum and a very strong leadership team.”
“I don’t expect any shifts or pivots in strategy related to the selection of the new CEO,” he said. “That is the fundamental point that Bill and Melinda made. They are very satisfied with our core strategies.”