Patty Stonesifer.

• Author: Harrison, Joan
• Position: Gates Library Foundation chairman is newest corporate director of Alaska Air

This Microsoft veteran and now a top leader in the nonprofit realm will be flying Alaska Air as its newest director.

In 1996, when Patty Stonesifer announced that she would be leaving her senior management position at Microsoft Corp., DreamWorks SKG executive Jeffrey Katzenberg, who had worked closely with her in negotiating an interactive media venture between Microsoft and his multimedia company, was quoted in The Wall Street Journal as saying: "I don't think there is anybody who impressed Steven [Spielberg] and David [Geffen] and me in that field more than Patty."

At the time of her resignation, Stonesifer had been senior vice president of Microsoft's interactive media division - and one of the powerhouses in the software industry. Under her leadership, the company's consumer products business advanced from laggard to market leader and its troubled product support services division became a world-class operation. As rewarding as her accomplishments were to her, she says that her responsibilities required a great deal of time and effort. She left her demanding job at Microsoft after nine years of service at the company - a time she describes as "a wild ride" - and worked briefly as a consultant. She now focuses her energy on philanthropic, community service, and personal pursuits.

When DIRECTORS & BOARDS caught up with her to discuss her 22-year career managing leading-edge technology developments and her recent appointment to the board of Alaska Air Group Inc., she had just been informed that she was mentioned, along with Hillary Clinton and Madeleine Albright, in Fortune magazine's feature, "The Fifty Most Powerful Women in American Business." While the top 50 were restricted to corporate executives, the article designates the three women as influential forces in politics and in the nonprofit realm, which is where Stonesifer devotes most of her time as president and chairman of the Seattle, Wash.-based Gates Library Foundation.

"I am honored to be mentioned among this amazing group of women" Stonesifer says. "Women are providing leadership in so many different arenas. Some are heading corporations, some are developing public policy, and others are running nonprofits."

The Gates Library Foundation is an organization established with a $200 million endowment from Bill and Melinda Gates that is dedicated to providing computers and Internet access, through the public library system, in low-income communities across the country. In her...