Brian Aborgast

Brian Arbogast is currently the Director of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Water, Sanitation & Hygiene program, where he leads the foundation’s effort to bring groundbreaking innovations in sanitation technology and new ways to deliver sanitation products and services to people in the developing world. Brian came to the Foundation following a 20+ year career with Microsoft where he served most recently as a Corporate Vice President, responsible for delivering the mobile services strategy, platform, and experiences for Windows Live and Windows Mobile, as well as the strategy, platform, and integrated services for network operators. These R&D efforts spanned campuses in the U.S., China, Israel, and Portugal. Prior to 2000, Brian managed the teams which developed the core technologies behind Windows Live Hotmail, Messenger, calendar, contacts, storage, VoIP, and online identity services when these were the highest-scale services in the world, growing from 150 million to over 500 million users. Earlier roles included running Visual Studio from 1997 to 2000 and Access from 1994 to 1997, and working as a lead developer on Access 1.0.

Brian has also been an active angel-stage impact investor in the clean energy sector since 2007, and joined Northwest Energy Angels in 2010. He is also a founding board member of the Progress Alliance of Washington, which organizes a community of donors to make strategic investments in progressive social and political change in Washington State, and of Fuse, which uses online communications and grassroots organizing to give people a stronger voice in Washington State government. Brian holds a B.Math in Computer Science and Electrical Engineering from the University of Waterloo and a Certificate in Sustainable Business from the Bainbridge Graduate Institute.