There are many ways of doing unique things. On the 7th of December of 1942, Reginald Lewis - a man that did different things his own way was born. This piece is an ode to him.
I can count in one single hand the people I read or watch documentaries about that I wish I had had the good fortune to meet or grab a coffee with, one of them is Reginald F. Lewis.
Reginald or Reggie as he was known to friends, was a focused, intense and tenacious force of nature, his words and actions were assertive, he was extremely intelligent, eloquent and soft spoken, and did things his own way, to no surprise he was one of the most successful business leaders of all times.
At a young age his grandfather told him:
"Know your job and you'll never be in the breadline."
Just at the tender age of 9 he had set his mind on becoming the richest Black man in America.
He was a visionary with big ambitions both in the legal sector and in the world of business, someone that didn't let barriers get in the way and regarded challenges as opportunities.
Reginald Lewis had a saying that underscored his approach to life and business, and which has inspired many that followed on the path that he paved:
”Be inspired to keep going, no matter what!”
He was forced to learn from an early age to transform failure and disappointment into valuable lessons for life.
"What I found is if you have a core set of values: like family, like hard work, like trust — these are things that will stay with you even when you may be having a difficult time with a specific problem. But if you maintain the core values, you can generally ride through any particular problem, and in the end, you will be pleased with the result."
As a Harvard educated and Wall St trained corporate lawyer combined with his intense and driven personality, and risk appetite, Lewis was eager to get a slice of the money and power of high finance.
In 1983 he founded the venture capital firm TLC Group.
Lewis wanted to close big leverage buyout deals. To make these transactions successful he would have to buy a mature company with a predictable and stable cashflow which would allow him to pay the tremendous debt once the deal was done.
It wasn’t long before he completed his first successful deal. In 1984 he bought the McCall Pattern Company for $22.5 million and 3 years later he sold it for an astounding $90 millions, making a 90 to 1 return on his investment.
He broke new ground and the business world took notice of him a few years later when he engineered - what at the time was the largest off-shore leveraged buyout -the nearly $1 Billion - to be exact the $985 million leverage buyout of Beatrice International Foods in 1987, in this single deal he bought 64 companies in 31 countries.
In becoming the CEO of Beatrice International, he was propelled into an exclusive group of business leaders at the pinnacle of industry.
With his legacy established, Lewis was beginning to enjoy the fruits of his success when tragedy struck. In 1992 he was diagnosed with brain cancer. Lewis passed away at the young age of 50 on the 19th of January 1993.
Reginald Lewis was a figure greater than life and his legacy lives on at places like The Lewis International Law Centre at Harvard University which he established with a $3 million gift to help train the legal profession’s next generation of leaders.
Lewis was a family man who enjoyed the simple joys of extended family reunions and friendship, and cared deeply about giving back to the community and helping others succeed. The Reginald F. Lewis Foundation started by Lewis in 1987 continues this tradition by helping and providing opportunities to the most disadvantaged in society.
The Reginald F. Lewis Foundation makes possible initiatives such as the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African-American History and Culture - the Museum collects, preserves, interprets, documents and exhibits the rich history of Maryland’s African-American community and is located in Baltimore, Maryland where Lewis was born and raised.
As head of the most significant Black owned business in the the 1980s and 1990s, he paved the way for a generation of Africans and of people of African descent business leaders, and demonstrated that despite all of the challenges and obstacles that may be thrown your way, the human spirit may bend but it will never break.
Reginald Lewis’ combination of business excellence, personal achievement and inspiring entrepreneurial spirit set in stone a standard that will always withstand the passage of time.
Hasta la vista!
Dauda Barry