Mayor Edwin M. Lee today issued the following statement congratulating UCSF Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann who announced that she will step down effective March 31, 2014 to become Chief Executive Officer of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation:

“I extend my sincerest congratulations to Chancellor Susan Desmond-Hellmann on her new role at the helm of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I thank her for her leadership and service to the residents of our City as she blazed a trail in health care, innovation and education here and around the world.

Chancellor Desmond-Hellmann was the first woman Chancellor of UCSF, and she applied her extensive private sector experience to ensure UCSF led the way in science, medicine and research at the University, UCSF Medical Center and Benioff Children’s Hospital. She partnered with our City to make Mission Bay the center of cutting edge biotechnology and life science discoveries, and she helped make San Francisco the Innovation Capital of the World. I thank Chancellor Desmond-Hellmann for her work on my Education Leadership Council, advising me on education issues, developing a plan to save City College and preparing our youth for the jobs of the 21st Century economy.  

Chancellor Desmond-Hellmann will be greatly missed here in San Francisco, but I can think of no better place for the Chancellor to extend her impact on the world than at the Gates Foundation.”