He argues that “good, well-meaning” directors are often slow to hire minority candidates because they don’t know where to find qualified people who are not white and fear diluting the quality of their boards.
“What I’m trying to do with the Black Heart Foundation is grow the ranks so that you can’t help but run into people [from minorities],” he says. “We’re trying to grow an army of people so you feel like ‘they’re at my front door, they’re in my back garden, they’re on my street, they’re everywhere you look’ and you can’t argue that they do not have the quality, the educational background, the experience.”
Access to capital is another barrier Lewis wants to tackle. “There’s a problem in real estate, private equity or hedge [funds] – you can’t get money till you’ve had money and invested money,” he explains. “Which either is really good because people are looking for a track record, or it’s an amazing way to keep newcomers out of being in the game.”
Studies show that minority-led businesses receive capital less frequently. Lewis chairs the investment committee of Impact X, which funds start-ups led by BAME entrepreneurs.
He invokes the adage that the man who owns the gold makes the rules. Helping people from under-represented communities to build businesses can give them the “economic power to make change and make rules – not to exclude anyone else, but just to be in the conversation [and] get a vote in the room where it happens”, he says.
Lewis takes inspiration from his alma mater, Dartmouth College, More than 40pc of undergraduates at the Ivy League university are now from ethnic minorities. “If you want to get it done, you can get it done. I don’t mean it’s overnight, but it is possible. You just have to want to do it and think it’s valuable for the community that you’re in.”