Bill Gates is cochair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and founder of Breakthrough Energy. Bill founded Microsoft in 1975 with his childhood friend Paul Allen and led the company to become the worldwide leader in business and personal software and services. In 2008, Bill transitioned to focus full-time on the Gates Foundation’s work to expand opportunity to the world’s most disadvantaged people. As cochair, he shapes and approves foundation strategies and sets the overall direction of the organization. Through the foundation, he has spent more than 20 years working on global health and development issues including pandemic prevention; disease eradication; maternal, newborn and child health; agricultural development and water, sanitation and hygiene, among others. Through his private office, Gates Ventures, he pursues his work in Alzheimer’s research and other healthcare issues, interdisciplinary education, and technology. At Breakthrough Energy, he’s putting his experience as an innovator and problem-solver to work to address climate change by supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs, big thinkers, and clean technologies. In 2010, Bill, Melinda French Gates, and Warren Buffett founded the Giving Pledge, an effort to encourage the wealthiest families and individuals to publicly commit more than half of their wealth to philanthropic causes and charitable organizations during their lifetime or in their will.

Fareed Zakaria hosts Fareed Zakaria GPS for CNN Worldwide and is a columnist for The Washington Post, a contributing editor for The Atlantic, and a bestselling author.

Fareed Zakaria GPS is a weekly international and domestic affairs program that airs on CNN/U.S. and around the world on CNN International. Since its debut in 2008, it has become a prominent television forum for global newsmakers and thought leaders.

Interviews on Fareed Zakaria GPS have included U.S. President Barack Obama, French President Emmanuel Macron, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Other past guests include military officials such as Gen. David Petraeus and Adm. Michael Mullen; corporate leaders such as Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein and Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi; and other public figures like Bill Maher and Bono. The program earned the prestigious Peabody Award in 2011 and has received multiple Emmy nominations.

Zakaria has regularly hosted primetime specials for CNN Worldwide, such as “Blindsided: How ISIS Shook the World,” “Why Trump Won,” and “Putin: The Most Powerful Man in the World.” He frequently contributes his thoughtful analysis of world events and public affairs to CNN.com; Fareed’s Global Briefing, a daily digital newsletter; and other programming across CNN’s multiple platforms.

Zakaria is the author of three highly-regarded and New York Times bestselling books: In Defense of a Liberal Education (2015), a commentary on the importance of a well-rounded education; the international bestselling The Post-American World (1st ed. 2008, 2nd ed. 2011), a discussion of the rise of non-Western powers; and The Future of Freedom (2003), a study of “illiberal democracy” in various countries, also an international bestseller. His latest book is Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World.

Prior to his tenure at CNN Worldwide, Zakaria was editor of Newsweek International, managing editor of Foreign Affairs, a columnist for Time, an analyst for ABC News, and the host of Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria on PBS.

In 2017, Zakaria was awarded the Arthur Ross Media Award by the American Academy of Diplomacy, and in 2010, the Government of India awarded him the Padma Bhushan, one of its highest civilian honors. He was named a “Top 10 Global Thinker of the Last 10 Years” by Foreign Policy magazine in 2019, and Esquire once called him “the most influential foreign policy adviser of his generation.”

Zakaria serves on the boards of the Council of Foreign Relations and New America. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale University, a doctorate in political science from Harvard University, and has received numerous honorary degrees.