By Natalie Revelle
October 27, 2016
In 2010 at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Natalie Revelle was a relatively new financial manager supporting the global health team. Bill Gates was present at a meeting, where Gavi, the global alliance that raises funds from international donors to provide vaccines to children in the world’s poorest countries, was discussed.
At the time, the Gates Foundation was collaborating with UNICEF and Gavi to improve access to the
rotavirus vaccine, which prevents diarrheal disease, the second largest killer of children under the age of
5. We were working on an arrangement to guarantee a vaccine supplier a certain volume of sales for
several years in exchange for the supplier’s commitment to produce that much vaccine and to reduce
prices for developing countries.
Read Natalie’s account of this meeting, and learn what Bill Gates said during that meeting that stuck with her.