William M. Lewis Jr. was born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1956. A scholarship through A Better Chance helped him attend Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, where he graduated in 1974 and received the Academy's highest student honor, the Aurelian Honor Society Award. He then studied economics at Harvard, earning his undergraduate degree in 1978 and an MBA in 1982. The HistoryMakers' public biography places educational opportunity near the beginning of his professional story.
Lewis first joined Morgan Stanley as an analyst, left for business school and returned after completing his MBA. In 1989, he became the firm's first African American managing director, and accounts of his career also record that he was the youngest person then holding the title. His Morgan Stanley career included leading the firm's Midwest mergers and acquisitions group, later co-leading its global mergers and acquisitions practice, and work with the firm's charitable foundation and diversity task force, spanning twenty-four years associated with the firm including the interruption for graduate study.
In 2004, Lewis moved to Lazard, where he spent seventeen years and became co-chairman of investment banking, advising global corporations on corporate and financial matters. In October 2021, Lazard announced that he would join its board while moving to Apollo as a partner, and Apollo records him today as a senior partner.
His nonprofit involvement includes a return to A Better Chance in a leadership role, the organization that had opened the door to Phillips Academy for him; he has served as its chairman. He has also served as treasurer of the National Urban League and as co-chairman of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. The record shows the connection between the educational support he received and the educational organizations he later helped govern.
