Bill Gates consolidated the role of Microsoft in his philanthropic activities on Monday by making a top executive from the software company head of his $37bn foundation.

Jeff Raikes, who resigned as president of Microsoft’s business division at the start of this year, will take over in September as chief executive of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Mr Raikes replaces Patty Stonesifer, another former top Microsoft executive.

Ms Stonesifer – who joined the foundation, the world’s largest, a decade ago – announced her decision to step down last autumn and the appointment of her successor has been closely watched by the foundation’s 500-strong staff and the many recipients of the $16bn (€10.3bn, £8.2bn) in donations it has made.

Mrs Gates, joint chairman of the foundation, said it and Microsoft were “clearly separate entities. We wanted somebody to build on what we have today and build to the next level, with the right leadership qualities, ... and a lot of ambition and [who] shared our passion with the same set of core values.”

Mr Raikes has been involved in the US charity United Way, while in 2002 he created a foundation focused on “youth development, education and critical community issues” that gave out $6m last year.

He comes from Nebraska, the home state of Warren Buffett, the world’s richest man and a close friend of Mr Gates. In 2006 Mr Buffett pledged most of his fortune to the foundation and became a trustee.

Mr Raikes drew a parallel with Microsoft’s work on “the magic of software” and his new job in “taking on a very interesting challenge and using] science, technology and systems thinking to take on very tough problems in society”.

The Gates Foundation has been increasing its staff and donations substantially in recent months in response to Mr Buffett’s contributions. It is reaching an important time as some of the experimental medicines and vaccines it has helped fund are nearing regulatory approval.

Its education activities concentrate on improving the performance of US high schools by making them smaller. It has made pro­gress but results on mathematics has been mixed.

Mr Raikes said he was interested in agriculture.