Carol Sutton Lewis and William M. Lewis, Jr. - Honorees - The Gordon Parks Foundation

CAROL SUTTON LEWIS is an attorney whose current focus is on education and the arts. She is the Vice Chair of the Studio Museum in Harlem, and co-chairs its Capital Campaign Committee. She is on the board of the Foundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies, and is a former trustee of the Addison Gallery at Phillip’s Academy in Andover, Mass. 

Carol has spent over 20 years focusing on child development, parenting, and education, and is especially interested in how children of color learn and develop.  She shares best practices in her parenting blog called Ground Control Parenting (groundcontrolparenting.com) which is designed for parents of children of color and has a particular emphasis on issues affecting boys. 

She is a member of the Board of Trustees of Stanford Law School and The University of Pennsylvania’s School of Arts and Sciences, and is a former trustee of the Collegiate School in New York City. She was appointed by President Obama to serve on the Advisory Council of the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, and sits on the New York Advisory Council of Common Sense Media, an advocacy group dedicated to helping children thrive in a world of media and technology.


WILLIAM M. LEWIS, JR. is a Managing Director and Co-Chairman of Investment Banking at Lazard Ltd. In addition, Mr. Lewis chairs the Firm’s Global Investment Banking Managing Director Promotion Committee.

Mr. Lewis was elected a Managing Director of Morgan Stanley in 1989, becoming the firm’s First African-American Managing Director. Between 1994 and 2004, Mr. Lewis was head or co-head of the Global Banking Department, the Global Mergers & Acquisitions Department and Morgan Stanley Realty.  His last position at Morgan Stanley was Co-Head of the Global Banking Department where he was responsible for the firm’s global industry practices and regions which accounted for revenue in excess of $2 billion. In addition to his transaction, business development and management responsibilities at Morgan Stanley, Mr. Lewis was also chairman of the firm’s charitable foundation, chairman of its diversity task force, member of the firm’s Political Action Committee, and member or chairman of numerous other internal committees including recruiting, mentoring, promotion, evaluation and compensation.

Mr. Lewis is a member of the Economic Club of New York and currently serves on the boards of a number of not-for-profit organizations including Uncommon Schools (the largest charter school organization in the Northeast), the New York City Police Foundation, The Posse Foundation, Research Alliance for NYC Schools and the Institute for Sports Medicine Research. He is also a member of the Harvard Management Company which is responsible for the Harvard University endowment. In the past, he has served as Co-Chairman of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Treasurer of the National Urban League, Chairman of A Better Chance and as a member of the boards of Phillips Academy, the American Museum of Natural History, the Executive Committee of the USGA, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the New York Philharmonic, Morehouse College, the Central Park Conservancy, the NCAA Advisory Board, Harvard’s Committee on Alumni Affairs and Development, Harvard’s Task Force on Students and Northwestern Memorial Hospital (Chicago). In addition to his not-for-profit activities, Mr. Lewis serves on the board of Ariel Investment Trust and formerly served on the boards of Freddie Mac and Darden Restaurants.

Videos