The Black Heart Foundation (BHF), a UK charity founded by businessman and philanthropist Ric Lewis who was previously named the most influential black person in Britain, has funded its 500th scholar – adding 400 additional scholars in the last 24 months following the hugely successful ‘Each Day. Every Day’ campaign.
The BHF was established in 2000 with the primary aim of removing barriers to aspiration and achievement for young people. The Black Heart Scholarship Programme, which launched in 2013, provides gap-funding for young people from under-resourced and under-represented groups who would otherwise not be able to achieve their ambitions or potential through Further or Higher Education.
In July 2020, the Foundation launched the ‘Each Day. Every Day.’ crowdfunding campaign in response to the murder of George Floyd and worldwide Black Lives Matter protests. Its goal was to raise £500,000 from friends and supporters in order to double the number of scholars from 100 to 200 by the end of 2021. The total raised to date now stands at £1.8 million, including a substantial donation from the Foundation’s board of trustees and £500,000 of funding from award-winning grime artist Stormzy’s Merky Foundation.
The programme plans to continue awarding more scholarships but is also seeking partners to get involved so that more young people can be supported and relieved from the financial burden and stress that students encounter when going to university.
Founder and Chairman of The Black Heart Foundation, Ric Lewis, said:“We were delighted by the support the Foundation received during the ‘Each Day. Every Day.’ campaign. Every pound donated has gone straight to the scholars, accounting for around half the scholarships we have awarded over the past 18 months. But there is much more work to do. We had over 3000 applications last year. The need is huge and expanding rapidly as pressures mount on the cost of living for students and their families. We will continue to need significant funds to match our own contributions so that we can continue to empower a new generation of young people and level the playing field of aspiration and achievement.”
He added: “We are on the hunt for a like-minded corporate partner committed to match our Board’s financial commitment to take our work to the next level and to create a lasting legacy and a new cohort of talent in the UK from the communities that have been left behind for far too long. We welcome any interested companies and organisations to get in touch with the Foundation.”
For Black Heart scholars, being relieved of the financial stress and burden they and their families bear has allowed many of them to solely concentrate on their studies.
Richard, an undergraduate Chemistry student at University of Oxford, said:“I was elated when I received the news that I had been awarded the scholarship as I knew it would relieve the financial burden that living away from home can often cause. Embodying the values of the Black Heart Foundation is extremely important to me and this includes giving back to the community. I have done this through the creation of a website designed to demystify the Oxbridge experience and bridge the information gap between applicants.”
Jeno, undergraduate Software Engineering student at UWE Bristol, said:“Receiving this scholarship from the Black Heart Foundation meant that I do not have to stress about funding my basic living costs for the remaining time of studying at university. I am able to focus only on achieving the best results I can in my studies along with gaining an appropriate learning outcome from my course that would allow me to begin my career in software development. As a Black Heart scholar, I am able to fulfil my potential in education that would hopefully lead to achieving my career aspirations after completing my course.”
To date, 75% of the BHF’s scholars come from black and ethnic minority backgrounds and 66% of scholars identify as female. Scholars have studied at over 130 academic institutions from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, Bristol and Loughborough to the commercial flight school at Aer Lingus and The Urdang Academy of performing arts in London. The Foundation has already allocated more than £7.5 million in grants, awards and scholarships.
Show will offer £15,000 in seed funding for diverse rising stars and drive positive social change
Businessman Ric Lewis and David ‘Sideman’ Whitely have teamed up for a brand new podcast, “The Mentor”, in which Ric will help three young rising stars from underrepresented communities and under-resourced backgrounds achieve their personal and business dreams.
Ric will personally mentor the budding entrepreneurs over 12 weeks, drawing on his +30-year career in business and giving them £5,000 each in backing or seed funding to kick-start their ambitions. Sideman is the voice of the series, weaving together the stories with humour and warmth, and undertaking his own journey with Ric.
The three rising stars each bring their own unique stories and challenges to the series:
Lois: a 17-year-old from Warrington. She’s planning her start at university; aiming to be the firstperson in her family to go to university
Solomon: a 15-year-old from Manchester. He’s entrepreneurial and wants to start his own clothingline to bring recognition to his City
Toni: a 21-year-old Cambridge graduate with the world at his feet. At this juncture of his life he wantsto make the best possible choices as he enters the world of work
Voted the most influential black person in Britain in the 2019 Powerlist, Ric is Executive Chairman of real estate investment management firm Tristan Capital Partners. He is also founder of The Black Heart Foundation, a charity that provides scholarships to young people otherwise unable to afford higher or further education.
Earlier this year, the Foundation successfully raised over £1,500,000 through the “Each Day. Every Day.” crowdfunding campaign, culminating in a £500,000 donation from music icon Stormzy’s #Merky Foundation. The campaign has already helped The Black Heart Foundation almost double the number of young people it has helped through its scholarship programme to date, taking the total to 197 scholars at 80+ UK universities and schools.
Manchester audio-on-demand company Crowd Network, in partnership with The Black Heart Foundation, is developing the podcast. All profits from the first series will go to The Black Heart Foundation and Crowd Network plan to take on board and train a Black Heart Scholar, who will work on subsequent seasons of The Mentor.
Ric Lewis said: “When the team told me about their plans for the show it resonated with me instantly. Creating a podcast that is entertaining, rewards ambition but has a big heart and invests real time in people feels fresh and relevant given the challenges we face in our society today. The Mentor is a purposeful antidote to shows like The Apprentice, focussed on thoughtfully coaching a group of outstanding young people through crunch points in their lives, as we help them speed on their path to bigger, better and remarkable.”
Sideman said: “I’m happy that Ric hollered at me to work with him on this amazing concept. What Ric is doing with his Black Heart Foundation is phenomenal. The current climate has increased my interest in working with young people to bring about change and opportunities so this is a perfect fit for me.”
Mike Carr, CEO at Crowd Network said: “The Mentor is a podcast that will blaze a trail in the industry. It is incredibly entertaining, but its message of social change is so important and one we feel we have a duty to communicate.
“It is a privilege to be working with The Black Heart Foundation who do so much good for our society. When we launched as a company we committed to addressing the lack of diversity in the creative industries and giving opportunities to those from underprivileged backgrounds. This podcast is just one of the ways we are looking to have a positive impact in that space.”
The Mentor launches today with episodes released every Tuesday through Acast and available to download on all major podcast platforms.
About Crowd Network
We are an audio-on-demand network that specialises in unforgettable stories and personalities.
We make ground- breaking audio that makes people feel part of something bigger than themselves. We use the best presenters, producers and writers to create conversations you have to share.
STORMZY’S #MERKY FOUNDATION DONATES £500,000 TO THE “EACH DAY. EVERY DAY.” CAMPAIGN, SMASHING THROUGH FUNDRAISING TARGET
Monday 17th August 2020: #Merky Foundation, the charitable organisation set up by award-winning musician Stormzy, has pledged £500,000 to The Black Heart Foundation’s “Each Day. Every Day” campaign. The Black Heart Foundation will be the first UK charity to receive funding from #Merky Foundation’s £10m fund to tackle racial inequality and injustice, announced in June this year.
The “Each Day. Every Day.” campaign was launched by The Black Heart Foundation on July 8th 2020, in response to the Black Lives Matter movement. Its goal was to raise £500,000 from friends, supporters and the general public, to double the number of young people from under-resourced and under-represented communities it has helped to date through its Black Heart Scholarship Programme, taking it from 100 to 200 scholars.
The donation will take the total amount raised to date to over £1.45 million, including £500,000 of match funding from the Board of the Black Heart Foundation in response to the money raised both on Just Giving (www.justgiving.com/campaign/EachDayEveryDay) and through off line donations. The Black Heart Foundation has a 100% pass-through rate policy, with all of its overhead expenses covered by its Board, so that every single pound raised means more scholarships and goes directly to young people.
Ric Lewis, Founder and Chairman of the Board of the Black Heart Foundation, said:
“We are grateful to #Merky Foundation and invigorated by their generosity. Their contribution is an amazing testament to their vision and commitment to higher and further education for ambitious, hard-working young people from the most under-resourced and under-represented communities in our society. With their support we will reach another 50 young people, taking the total number of Scholars we can help to 250.”
“I want to thank everyone that has donated money so far. The response we have had has been incredible. I know there are others who still want to help us hit our original £500,000 crowdfunding target on Just Giving and so we are issuing one final invitation to everyone to get involved, give whatever they can, and be the change we want to see in our world.”
A spokesperson for the #Merky Foundation, said:
“The Black Heart Foundation is an incredible charity and we are proud to make them the first beneficiary to receive funding from our £10 million-pound pledge, announced earlier this year. Their ‘Each Day. Every Day’ campaign is a brilliant initiative and we are elated that our £500,000 donation has played a key part in helping them achieve their target. We encourage others to donate whatever they can to help change a young person’s life.”
The Black Heart Foundation is a UK and US registered charity founded in 2000 by Ric Lewis. In 2013, The Foundation launched the Black Heart Scholars Programme, which provides gap funding for ambitious, committed and talented young people who would otherwise not be able to achieve their potential through Further or Higher Education.
Since 2013, The Black Heart Foundation has provided Scholarships to 100 young people, 85% of whom are from BAME communities. The Scholars have studied at 57 academic institutions in the UK, from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, Bristol and Loughborough through to the commercial flight school at Aer Lingus and The Urdang Academy of performing arts in London. For more information on how to apply for a Black Heart Scholarships please visit: https://blackheartfoundation.org/scholarship-programme/.
To learn more about the Each Day. Every Day. crowdfunding campaign, or to donate visit www.justgiving.com/campaign/EachDayEveryDay, or text BLACKHEART5 to 70085 to donate £5 or BLACKHEART10 to 70085 to donate £10.
ENDS
For further information on #Merky Foundation, please contact Rachel Campbell on rachel@wired-pr.co.uk
Notes to Editors:
The Black Heart Foundation is a UK and US registered charity, founded in 2000 and chaired by Ric Lewis. It provides Scholarships to talented, ambitious and committed young people, removing the barriers to achievement for some of the most under-resourced and under-represented communities in our society.
Ric Lewis is an entrepreneur and philanthropist. He is Founder and Chairman of the Black Heart Foundation, which aims to remove the barriers to higher education for underprivileged children. He is a Board member of several charities, including the Institute of Imagination (Chairman), Royal National Children’s SpringBoard Foundation and Eastside Young Leaders’ Academy. A business leader, he is Founder and Chairman of Tristan Capital Partners, a London-based real estate investment management company with €10.5+Billion in Assets under Management. He was named as the most influential black Briton in the Powerlist 2019. He gave a TEDx talk in 2019.
The Black Heart Foundation Board of Trustees is Chaired by Ric Lewis and includes former England Rugby Captain Matt Dawson and former England cricket captain Michael Vaughan. Further information is available here:
The Black Heart Foundation is a registered charity in both the UK (Charity Number 1136813) and US registered with The Charities Commission. The Black Heart Foundation, c/o Tristan Capital Partners, Berkeley Square House, 8th Floor, Berkeley Square, London, W1J 6DB.
Applicants to the Black Heart Foundation Scholarship programme must submit a personal essay providing a brief summary of their educational activity and what they hope to do after graduating / finishing their course or programme, a general application form and a budget sheet presenting a clear case of financial need as well as any grants, bursaries, parental contributions, local authority assistance, loans and other scholarships.
The scholarship programme is open to all young people who are hardworking, under-resourced and who have ambition. All applications are reviewed holistically and applications are assessed on an individual basis. When considering applicants, The Foundation also looks for evidence that either they or their family have made a meaningful but affordable financial contribution towards helping realise their ambitions. This suggests that there is a real desire on the part of the individual concerned to commit to their studies or chosen vocation.
#Merky Foundation is a registered UK charity founded in 2019 by British musician Stormzy – Charity number 1186891. #Merky Foundation provides funding to organisations, charities and movements that are committed to fighting racial inequality, justice reform and black empowerment within the UK.
Stormzy is an award-winning musician from Thornton Heath, South London. His two albums to date; ‘Gang Signs & Prayer’ and ‘Heavy Is The Head’ both finished at #1 in the UK album chart and were subsequently nominated for the prestigious Mercury Music Prize. Last year he headlined Britain’s prominent music festival, Glastonbury.
His remarkable ascent has been accompanied by his honest and relatable character. A true spokesman of black empowerment and social activism, Stormzy is one of the UK’s most inspiring figureheads who has consistently stood up for people from all areas of life; encouraging his fans and listeners alike to speak openly about their beliefs and fight for their rights. In July 2018, Stormzy announced #Merky Books, an imprint within Penguin Random House UK, dedicated to publishing the best new fiction, non-fiction and poetry, and in August 2018 he announced ‘The Stormzy Scholarship’, an annual studentship to fund two black British students to go to the University of Cambridge. In June 2020, Stormzy announced that he pledges 10 million pounds, over 10 years, to organisations, charities and movements that are committed to fighting racial inequality, justice reform and black empowerment within the UK.
Meet Ric Lewis: The fun-loving property tycoon behind Tristan Capital Partners
JOANNA BOURKE | Friday 20 March 2020 13:19
The first thing you notice about Ric Lewis is his height. At 6ft 10in this former basketball player is the tallest man in property. Probably. The second observation is he knows how to throw a good knees-up. No other chairman can lay claim to DJing at beachfront bashes they host where bankers, estate agents and lawyers can raid a fancy-dress box and knock back tequila shots. Probably.
Lewis is the 57-year-old founder of property investment giant Tristan Capital Partners, which has a near £11 billion real estate empire, including offices, warehouses and retail parks here and in Europe. He chuckles as he recalls the infamous parties his firm has held at Mipim, the annual champagne-soaked industry conference in Cannes.
Sitting in his Berkeley Square office in a navy suit and crisp white shirt, Lewis says: “We think we are good at taking our business seriously and ourselves less so.”
However, in these days of lockdowns and self-isolation, being fancy-free is not so easy. Mipim was postponed and property deals have juddered to a halt as viewings become impossible.
It’s hard to believe how much has happened since Lewis was discussing his ambitious London acquisition plans at the start of the month, having been part of a £245 million swoop to buy a cluster of shops and offices called the Holborn Links Estate. The deal is designed to capitalise on soaring business demand for space once Crossrail opens.
But with coronavirus having huge implications for the bricks and mortar sector, his tone has rapidly changed this week.
“We are focused on being careful, safe and vigilant and putting our people, partners and clients first and the business a very close second,” he says.
“There are a lot of potential outcomes and it’s too early to start debating long-term effects. Instead, we are preparing for multiple scenarios so that we are poised to continue and win as we emerge from this difficult period.”
Throw in other well documented problems, from Brexit to plunging retail property values, and 2020 looks tough.
Not that Lewis will be cowed. He grew up in Salem, Massachusetts, famous for the witchcraft trials of the 17th century and Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. A dual UK and US citizen, he still has a strong American accent.
His mother worked for a telephone company and father was chief of the fire department with a carpet and window-cleaning business on the side, where Lewis helped out as a teenager.
He was academic at his state school and credits a careers adviser for encouraging him to apply to top universities. He went to Ivy League Dartmouth College to take Spanish and economics, then to Harvard Business School. While studying he played some pretty serious basketball, including once against Michael Jordan (“we got pasted”).
An internship at an estate agency followed, then a graduate programme at Shawmut Bank, Boston, before he joined property investor AEW in the late 1980s as an analyst. He became a partner in just seven years.
Lewis helped lead AEW’s big expansion into Europe, moving to London in 1998 with a joint venture division called Curzon Global Partners. Its first big purchase was a logistics property in Spain, at a time before Amazon made warehouses sexy. But the business is best known today for selling buildings at a big premium just before the global financial crisis.
The secret, he says, was that Curzon had invested in a “deep” research team which saw the crash coming while the rest of the market still thought “the party was going on”.
It was sell, sell, sell. Says Lewis: “We got the money in and said, ‘look, we’ll sit on our hands, but coming out of the crisis there’s going to be real value’.” And so it came to pass.
When AEW went into new ownership Lewis set up on his own. “A polite way to say it is I had a disagreement of philosophy about how the business should run.” It wasn’t easy, he says: “I didn’t think I was going to leave AEW. So even though it turned out well, that was a really sad and profound, hard moment for me.” He and his partners set up Tristan in 2009, and US insurer New York Life bought a 40% stake in 2018. Lewis remains the majority owner and his partners are also shareholders.
Tristan is known for its diverse portfolio. Among its holdings is retail property, which is struggling industry-wide as tenants seek rent cuts amid brutal High Street conditions. But that is balanced with offices and industrial parks.
While being a significant player in major EU markets, Tristan is committed to the UK despite Brexit, which Lewis was against.
He sounds most upbeat when discussing the charities he backs. These include Black Heart Foundation, which helps finance under privileged youngsters, often from ethic minority backgrounds, through university or courses.
That may one day result in the property industry getting more diverse. Lewis thinks that you would struggle to find many BAME (Black, Asian and minority ethnic) bosses in the sector.
In addition, he chairs Impact X which is a fund aiming to raise £100 million for start-ups led by BAME entrepreneurs in the UK and Europe. He says: “I don’t want to be the champion of diversity, but I would be shirking my responsibility to be a senior, accomplished BAME person, and not go ‘let’s keep going’.”
James McCaffrey, a managing director at property specialist Eastdil Secured’s London office, is among Lewis’s fans. McCaffrey, who first met Lewis in the 1980s, says: “He has range like no other person I know, from the boardroom to the basketball court.”
You may be surprised to hear that Lewis, a father of two teenage girls, has time to do anything outside of work. But most mornings he’s in his home gym in South Hampstead and is often to be found on a golf course. Oh, and then there are the TED talks.
When Britain gets out of the coronavirus nightmare, hopefully the deals will come rushing back. Lewis is likely to find it’s all work and no time for play.
City boardrooms snub me, claims black entrepreneur Ric Lewis
GREG HURST | SATURDAY 12 OCTOBER 2019 12.01
Britain’s most successful black businessman says that City of London boardrooms have snubbed him because he is out of their “comfort zone”.
Ric Lewis, the founder and chairman of Tristan Capital Partners, a £12 billion property investment fund, said he was perplexed that he had never been asked to join the board of a FTSE company. He accused executives in City boardrooms and government bodies of “picking the same 100 people” for directorships because they felt comfortable with “people like them”.
Mr Lewis, 57, was speaking to The Times about the launch of the first investment fund to support black entrepreneurs. The Impact X fund, of which he is chairman, is seeking to raise £100 million to invest in start-ups led by black businessmen and…
Meet The Black CEO Who Has Quietly Been Giving Scholarships To British Students
ELIZABETH PEARS | 30 OCTOBER 2018
“I’m getting to play black Santa,” says Ric Lewis, who was named Britain’s most powerful black person earlier this week.
Two things struck me about Ric Lewis on sight. One, he’s bloody tall. Two, he has that quality one might describe as presidential: polish, confidence, and charm wrapped up in a crisp navy suit and garnished with a full head of hair.
As the founding partner of Tristan Capital Partners, a real estate investment manager — which happens to be the largest black-owned, black-run business in Britain — those first impressions make total sense: He is presidential, just in the business sense. He’s not running for office; he chooses the offices. And, as you’d expect, they’re some very fancy digs in Berkeley Square, Mayfair.
Lewis has just been named Britain’s most powerful black person by the Powerlist, and it’s been a long time coming. For many years, the dual British and American citizen has featured in the annual round-up, but never made it to the prime spot. Now, he joins previous honourees, such as political campaigner Gina Miller, author Malorie Blackman, and Tidjane Thiam, the chief executive of Credit Suisse, to name a few.
But there’s a lot more to Lewis than his business profile. As he is happy to point out, he “didn’t start from third base”. The 55-year-old was born just outside of Boston, Massachusetts, in the coastal city of Salem. He describes his parents, both African Americans, as an ordinary lower-middle-class family. Lewis’s dad was the chief of the local fire department and his mother worked for a phone company that would later become Verizon.
He went to a regular public high school but was a standout pupil. With height on his side, Lewis was preordained to be a basketball player, but he was also class president and consistently one of the top students in his year.
Despite his academic prowess, Lewis believes he could have easily missed out on attending the Ivy League college he credits with setting him on a clear pathway to success. He could’ve missed out not because of some giant tragedy or cruel twist of fate, but simply because he didn’t know how big to dream. He didn’t know the Ivy League was a thing, for a start.
Laura Gallant / BuzzFeed News
“I remember my second year of high school and going to the library to look up what the Ivy League was,” he says. “And that wasn’t my parents’ fault — it just wasn’t part of the vernacular in our home. It wasn’t part of my lexicon.”
Then came the crucial “intervention” that Lewis says changed his life and forms the basis of his charitable work. By chance, he bumped into a family acquaintance who happened to be the head of careers guidance for the city of Salem in his high school hallway.
“He asked me what I was gonna do after senior year. I said I was going to go to university, and he kind of did a virtual version of slapping me in the back of the head, like, of course you are, but where are you going? I had been applying to local state and regional schools, and I don’t want to besmirch anyone here, but my profile and CV was better than that — I just didn’t know it.”
The guidance counsellor got him to sign a permission slip and took him to a college fair in Boston and walked him from table to table with his grade transcripts. Reps from some of America’s most elite universities encouraged him to apply. “They said, ‘Please apply to our school,’ and that’s what I did, still not really knowing anything about it. I got in everywhere, and that was the start of the process of me thinking that maybe I should be thinking about going to this top-10 college/university in the States.”
Lewis, the first in his extended family to even go to university, chose to major in economics at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, whose famous alumni include Nelson Rockefeller as well as trendier names such as Mindy Kaling and Shonda Rhimes.
His first-year roommates included a “third-generation Dartmouth kid whose father and grandfather worked on Wall Street” and another young man whose father had donated large sums of money to the college and had a building named after him.
Lewis could have easily felt inadequate, but he didn’t. It was a culture shock, he says when asked, but “in a good way”.
“I was like, if these are the people who run the world, I want my part. I wasn’t scared. Once you get that experience, your aspirations change and you start to get belief. You just need someone to feed that belief. … That’s what Dartmouth did for me: It changed my aspiration bubble. Then the next stage is being given a pathway. With a Dartmouth degree, they will hire you as an intern.”
Lewis, who went on to Harvard Business School, is incredibly grateful. “The reason that I do the work I do is because I am the product of someone intervening at the right time,” he says.
“What I dreamed of for myself is an extension, an augmentation, of what my parents had done, but it was so far less than my potential. But because someone said, ‘Actually, you should be thinking much bigger and experiencing these things’, it changed my life and so I am dedicated to doing that for other people.”
In 2015, Lewis, who has lived in the UK since around 1998, launched the Black Heart Foundation in Britain. Since then, it has given scholarships to 22 young people — the majority of whom are of African, Caribbean, or Asian heritage — to support their education at the institution of their choice, so far including Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, the London School of Economics, and the BRIT School.
Lewis recognises that money is a barrier to academic success that he can remove. With current tuition fees in England and Wales now at £9,250 per year, students in need of a loan will be graduating with an average debt of £50,000, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Recalling his own experience, Lewis says his father’s response to his university choice was: “How much does that college cost?”
“But then he went from ‘How the heck are we going to make this happen?’ to ‘Of course we’re going to make this happen’ because they [my parents] wanted to break me out of the box,” Lewis says.
Black Heart Foundation scholars can get their living costs (yes, including social life) and their tuition paid in full. As part of the process, the foundation asks applicants to write a pitch demonstrating their needs and what their parents can contribute, and the foundation underwrites the rest.
“I’m getting to play black Santa,” Lewis says with a laugh. “I joke about it, but you’re changing someone’s life. They are already doing the work; they just need some help. We give scholarships to those who need it, those who are doing well, but are saying, ‘I don’t know how we’re going to afford it.’”
Lewis’s foundation also focuses a lot on pastoral care. Though he wasn’t intimidated by his well-connected Dartmouth peers, he recognises others might be. “Our belief is unlimited love and unlimited time,” Lewis says.
He goes on: “There are so many influences that tell you — if you listen to them — that you don’t belong; you’re an imposter.”
“This is hard,” he says, referring to university in general. “The struggle is real and you need someone to go, yeah, that’s right. Normalise that life being hard is real. The struggle is real.
“We say to young people that if you want something of value, it’s gonna be hard, but I got you, we’re on your side. If you do work, we’ve got love for you.”
Then Lewis offers what perhaps is the clearest glimpse into his own experience: “Pioneers get arrows, they say. You get there and you’re like, I’m the only one. Little voices saying, ‘Give up. Why do you have to be the pioneer? It’s 6:30am in the morning. Why do you feel like you have to work twice as hard? Why do I have to do this?’
“That’s why we have to keep telling the stories. People look at me and say, ‘I want to be like you.’ I wasn’t born at third base. All the things you’re going through, I got it myself. I moved backwards. I had people criticise me. People were prejudiced, but my life shows there is a pathway.”
“It’s great. Stormzy doing it? Let’s have more people! … Let’s have 10 other people. If they get more credit than me, that’s fine. It’s the mission that matters.”
Although it’s not a competition, Lewis jokes that his two daughters were impressed when they realised he had ranked above Stormzy, a newcomer to last year’s Powerlist. “They were like, ‘Dad! Stormzy was 37! You got him!’” he laughs. “They love him and his music. I do too.”
Lewis realises he is part of a small but growing scene of black individuals who have the means and social capital to make meaningful change. He is clearly supportive of the concept of group economics as a means for black people to help their community.
Lewis recalls that when Ilube told him about the initiative, his response was decisive: “I’m in.”
“Tom was like, ‘What do you mean?’ And I’m like, here’s a cheque. I’m in. That was definitely me playing the cheeky American. Tom was such a gentleman not really wanting to talk about money, but I think deep down we both thought, This is pretty cool.”
Lewis sees collaboration as key to lasting change. “It is already happening,” he says. “Like with Tom, we have … a relationship and it’s helping to support what he is doing … That’s how it all gets started.”
He continues: “What we haven’t done [as a community] fundamentally is support each other. We haven’t been a great tribe — you can have arguments forever about that — but the truth is we do not do it as well as the Jewish community or some pockets of the Asian community, not even close, not even in the same league table.
“What I want to see is that critical ingredient of being predisposed to ask, Why not? Why wouldn’t I collaborate with so and so? Don’t start with the fear of, What am I going to lose by association by investing in their idea?
“If we really want to be in a better place, collectively, individually, have more freedom, more choice, we have to do some things together.”
For now, he is taking being named Britain’s most powerful black person in his stride. He’s proud, of course, but says, to him, the numbers are “arbitrary”.
“Last year when I was number 2, Mo Farah was number 5 or 6. He won two Olympic gold medals and I beat him?” he says with incredulity. “Seriously? Mo? What does the guy have to do to get above me?”
He continues: “I feel fortunate to be recognised as such, I’m just not sure whether I warrant it more than someone else, but I think the fact that we are celebrating each other is fantastic.”
“The key is what do you do with it?” he adds. “It feels like a lifetime achievement award, and I’m not done. I’m just getting started!”
This year has also seen the inclusion of some fellow Americans who’ve made Britain their home, including the Duchess of Sussex aka Meghan Markle, and Gary Stewart, a director at Telefonica Open Future & Wayra UK. Stewart also happens to be an adviser to the Amos Bursary, an education charity that supports young black men in Britain.
Lewis has no qualms about topping a black power list, which for some people can be a political statement they’re not always ready to make, preferring to be recognised in the mainstream.
“Without being ridiculous, I want it all,” Lewis says. “Being well respected for the work you are doing is what you want in life, taking that acclaim, and turning that into more work. That’s the way I look at it: You are just giving me more credibility and power to make more change.”
Lewis is also frank about his own so-called success, calling it a “shame” that he runs the largest black-owned business. It seems he wants some competition. “It’s a crime. It’s unbelievable to me,” he says. “On one level I’m proud, but on some level I’m like, you know, we need to raise the bar.”
It’s the same for his scholarships. “I don’t want to see 50 applicants. I want to see 500.”
He says there are times when he allows himself to think he has made it. “There are moments, but they’re fleeting,” he explains. “Maybe it’s my orientation, but as much as you’ve done, as big as you are, there’s always things up the hill from you. So, yeah, we’re a £10 billion company, but there are £50 billion, £100 billion companies. I’m not saying I need to be that big, but it is humbling.
“If I was in America, I wouldn’t be in the top 500 [of a power list]. If that list was expanded to include Asian and South Americans…? That doesn’t mean we haven’t done a great job, it just means there’s a lot of talent in the world. It’s a great way to keep your humility and perspective.”
Laura Gallant / BuzzFeed News
Lewis, who personally mentors “four or five” young adults, says he wants to be remembered as someone who was “magnanimous with their time and care”. “I know I am doing a lot more than a lot of people,” he says. “Even dear friends, they are so consumed by their work and family, they might help others [financially], but they don’t get personally involved.”
While Lewis says he has no particular role model, preferring to find qualities he admires in a “bunch of people, my contemporaries and those from my past”, he credits his maternal grandmother, a day labourer who at one time washed floors to earn a living, as a key influence.
“She just had this insight and wisdom,” he said. “Some of the stuff I talk about, she was telling me. She didn’t say it in these exact words but she was like, I made sacrifices so that you can go and build the village. It reminds me of a great quote by Maya Angelou that is something like, ‘Your crown has been bought and paid for by the people who came before you.’
“No matter how hard you think you are going through it, think about what your parents and grandparents went through. You think life today is tough? They couldn’t find a place to live. They were being lynched. They came here on the Windrush. That is real struggle. You have no reason not to man up or lady up and get on with it.”
“It takes a village to raise a great nation,” Lewis adds. “You can’t do it alone, and that’s why I’m trying to enlist other people, and that’s what I want to see our community do better.”
He continues: “My message is to get involved a little or a lot, personal or corporate. It’s too easy to be paralysed by all the possibilities and options, so do anything, do something. Move the ball along, because in a village, moving just one thing is still helping the village.”
Lewis’s eldest daughter is now a first-year student at Dartmouth. And she’s the roommate who is a legacy student and one whose father — a black man — is on the college’s board of trustees. A lot can change in one generation.
Football Stars, Business Leaders, and Media unite…
David Beckham, Freddie Ljungberg, Robert Pires, Kieran Gibbs, Sir Alex Ferguson, Rio Ferdinand and Oguchi Onyewu attend the Grassroot Soccer fundraising gala –
The Black Heart Foundation has been a long time supporter of GRS and its programmes which involves working with children in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia and other parts of Sub-Saharan Africa.
The Foundation has continued to grant financial support to a number of beneficiary charities and initiatives and we are pleased to announce that our latest recipient was the Urban Land Institute (ULI), supporting its UrbanPlan educational initiative in schools across the UK. UrbanPlan teaches young people about the urban environment though a series of interactive workshops and team challenges. Since its inception in the U.S. over ten years ago, it has reached more than 27,000 students. Its launch in the UK in 2015 marked the first time this programme has been taken overseas. UrbanPlan UK delivers targeted, one-day workshops for A-level students studying geography and business studies.
The Black Heart Foundation is delighted to continue its affiliation with and is grateful to 6-time European Tour Winning golfer Brett Rumford. Brett is a long time Black Heart Foundation Ambassador and wears the Black Heart Logo in support of The Foundation at European Tour, USPGA Tour, R&A and WGC events. Thanks to Brett, The Foundation’s friends, supporters and beneficiaries alike can lookout for the Black Heart logo at some of golf’s most prestigious events.
