By Marty Michaels

In a much-anticipated move, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has announced the creation of advisory panels that will help guide and evaluate each of its three grant-making programs.

The foundation — the world’s largest, with approximately $34.6-billion in assets — has come under scrutiny for the close-knit nature of its board, which comprises just three trustees, all donors: Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren E. Buffett, the investor and philanthropist who pledged stock worth more than $30-billion to the fund last summer.

With the addition of Mr. Buffett’s dollars, by 2009 the foundation will award at least $3.2-billion each year through its three program areas, which focus on combating global-health challenges, mitigating poverty in developing countries, and transforming education in the United States.

The magnitude of Mr. Buffett’s gift was the major impetus behind forming the advisory boards, said Patty Stonesifer, the foundation’s chief executive officer, in an interview with The Chronicle.

“Warren’s money raises the bar,” said Ms. Stonesifer. “The good news is that a little over a year ago he doubled our capacity. The challenge of that is the responsibility we need to take on, not just to do well with the money but to find mechanisms to ensure that feedback still works when we have this disproportionate amount of grant making going on.”

The 11 members of the global-development and U.S. program panels were announced today. The third panel, which will help guide the foundation’s global-health program, is expected to be named within a month.

With some exceptions, the advisers hail from academic, business, or political backgrounds, including Lawrence H. Summers, former president of Harvard University; Ernesto Zedillo, Mexico’s former president; and Henry Cisneros, the former secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

‘Reducing Inequities’

Ms. Stonesifer said that more than a year ago the foundation’s executive team started crafting the advisory councils, beginning with learning about other grant makers’ approaches. The three program directors — Sylvia Mathews Burwell, global development; Allan C. Golston, U.S. programs; and Tadataka (Tachi) Yamada, global health — then recommended potential candidates.

All told, said Ms. Stonesifer, the executive team sought “people whose accomplishments circled the issue of reducing inequities. And then, of course, we were looking for people that really brought deep expertise in either understanding the economic, political, or social issues that are present and factors in all the issues we’re tackling.”

The panel members will serve for an initial three-year period, meeting twice a year, in addition to conferring on pertinent issues in the interim. They will not review specific grant requests or proposals.

Nevertheless, Ms. Stonesifer said that some conflicts of interest were “inevitable” given the nature of the foundation’s work. “What we need to do are manage the conflicts,” she said. “Our priority really was to go for expertise and experience, with a recognition that, with the level of our grant making, some of the advisers will be connected in some way with some of the grantees.”

She said that disclosure of any conflicts would be paramount, and that the chair of each panel would work with the program heads to discuss recusals and other approaches by which panel members could remove themselves from a potential conflict of interest.

With regard to compensation, Ms. Stonesifer said the foundation followed Internal Revenue Service guidelines. The panel chair will be offered $5,000 per meeting, while other members will be offered $4,000 per meeting, and the foundation will cover travel expenses.

“We felt it was appropriate to do a nominal compensation,” Ms. Stonesifer said.

In the end, the foundation chose advisers who were “not swayed by the potential of our checkbook,” said Ms. Stonesifer. “They’re really people who have put their whole career around speaking truth to power and finding ways to use that power to help those who need it most.”

Following are the members of the two advisory panels named today:

Global Development Program Advisory Panel Rajat Gupta (Chair), chairman of the board, India School of Business; former managing director, McKinsey & Company Amina J. Ibrahim, senior special assistant to the president on the Millennium Development Goals, Nigeria Kavita N. Ramdas, president and chief executive officer, Global Fund for Women Lawrence H. Summers, professor and former president, Harvard University; former secretary of the U.S. Treasury Ernesto Zedillo, director, Yale Center for the Study of Globalization; former president of Mexico Philip Zelikow, professor of history, University of Virginia; former counselor, U.S. Department of State

U.S. Program Advisory Panel Ann Fudge (Chair), former chairman and chief executive officer, Young & Rubicam Brands Henry Cisneros, chairman and chief executive officer, CityView; former secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Christopher Edley, dean, Boalt School of Law, University of California at Berkeley Edward Glaeser, professor of economics, Harvard University Walter Massey, president emeritus, Morehouse College