IT Business Mogul David Steward
World Wide TechnologyDavid Steward is the second richest Black man in America with a net worth of $3.5 billion.
David Steward is the cofounder and chairman of IT provider World Wide Technology (WWT), whose customers include Citi, Verizon, and the federal government. Forbes put Steward’s fortune as of 2020 at roughly $3.5 billion.
As the second richest Black man in the U.S., David Steward’s childhood was far from his billionaire life he has now. He was born in Chicago, Illinois, but grew up in segregated Missouri with seven siblings. His father worked multiple jobs as a mechanic, janitor, and trash collector to make ends meet.
Steward credited the work ethic of his father, which came out of necessity as a Black man barred from working certain jobs, with inspiring him to succeed.
After receiving a bachelor’s degree in business from Central Missouri State University, David Steward dove into his work. He held several management positions at Federal Express Corporation, Missouri Pacific Railroad, and Wagner Electric before finally branching out on his own.
In 1983, with enough money and knowledge about transportation services, he acquired a company called Transportation Business Specialists. In 1987, he started a sister company, Transport Administrative Services. Later, he founded a new tech venture called World Wide Technology.
But even with his acumen, growing his business from scratch wasn’t easy. In the early days, Steward said he sometimes went without a paycheck. At one point, things got so bad that Steward had to watch helplessly as his car got repossessed from the office parking lot.
“I was in despair,” Steward said of the business’ early days. “The banks had shut us down. Our creditors were all over us. Some people in our organization had reallocated some of our money into their own pocket, and we had fired the person who did that. It was a dark, dark day.”
Fast forward to 2020, WWT has a total valuation worth of nearly $12 billion. Its majority owner is still David Steward.
