David L. Steward

David Steward's route into technology began outside the computer industry. Born in Chicago in 1951, he grew up in Clinton, Missouri, during segregation. The Horatio Alger Association's biography describes his experience as an African American young man there: he took part in integrating the town's public swimming pool in 1967, and a later account of his Horatio Alger Award notes that he was the first person of color to attend Clinton's newly integrated elementary school. He graduated from Central Missouri State University in 1973.

His early jobs were in transportation and sales. Steward worked for Missouri Pacific Railroad before joining Federal Express in 1979, where he won a sales award in 1981. Then came transportation-auditing businesses of his own, examining shipping charges and billing.

In 1990, Steward founded World Wide Technology with Jim Kavanaugh, who later became its chief executive. Steward focused on strategic relationships while Kavanaugh ran the company. The privately held company grew into the largest Black-owned business in the United States, with billions of dollars in annual revenue and more than ten thousand employees. A 2020 Time profile described WWT as a $12 billion company.

Steward and his wife, Thelma, have also put money into jazz education. In July 2018, the University of Missouri-St. Louis announced a leadership gift from the Steward Family Foundation to establish the David & Thelma Steward Institute for Jazz Studies, supporting scholarships, visiting artists, educational travel and a summer jazz camp for young instrumentalists. The company he started in 1990 remains privately held, and its site still lists him as chairman and founder.