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Polarity founder and CEO and Academy Award-winning producer David Steward II has been named the St. Louis American Foundation’s 2024 Entrepreneur of the Year.
Steward founded Polarity in 2018. The company encompasses a portfolio of content companies that produce graphic novels and comics, animated television, streaming, film and games. In 2019, he launched Lion Forge Animation and is involved in production. hair love, which won the 2020 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. That company rebranded in 2023 to include a broader range of content and became Lion Forge Entertainment. Steward founded his first entertainment company, The Lion Forge, LLC, in 2011 to publish comic books.
Steward maintains its original mission of publishing comics and graphic novels with content for everyone, regardless of gender identity, ethnicity, or cultural background, and covers more forms of content We have expanded our mission to: In carrying out this mission, he was able to build an unusually diverse roster of personnel. Polarity and its subsidiaries employ more than 60 of his staff, 70% of whom are minorities and women. Of the 35+ titles, 90% feature minorities and women.
Steward was recognized for his inclusive leadership in the following areas: of variety The 2022 Inclusion Impact Report highlights the entertainment industry’s most influential advocates for inclusivity.of hollywood reporter We named Steward one of the 75 Most Influential People in Kids Entertainment in 2023. This is also a mainstream honor in the industry.
Steward’s namesake father, David Steward, founder and chairman of World Wide Technology, won the St. Louis American Foundation’s inaugural Entrepreneur of the Year Award in 2000. American Steward Sr. asked about his son following in his footsteps.
“My son honors the family legacy of faith-filled entrepreneurship. His grandfather, Harold Steward (the first Steward Entrepreneur), was thrilled to see the work that Dave II accomplished. “I know he will. My wife Thelma and I are extremely proud of the groundbreaking work he has done in the animation and entertainment industry,” said David Steward.
“We know that our son and his company have a bright future as he continues to follow his faithful calling on life. He will use his entrepreneurial spirit to realize the importance of diversity. While emphasizing sexuality, it touches the lives of many people in the next generation and beyond.”
American spoke to David Steward II about the lessons he learned from his father, how he has grown a diverse portfolio of diverse entertainment companies, and why St. Louis is the place for his two young children to follow their North Star. He talked about why he considers it a place where people can learn.
American in St. Louis: Obviously, this honor is about you and your company, but there are two key people you need to get out of the way first. One is your father. When I asked him about winning this award, he talked about how you are a faith-filled entrepreneur just like him. How does your faith guide your company’s efforts?
David Steward II: I learned from my father by watching him start a business, how he grew it, how he worked with others, how he treated people, and how he ran his business. I learned many lessons from. The guidelines we have always operated are all based on the Bible. Sometimes it’s just a simple thing when it comes to dealing with people at different levels within an organization, whether it’s the person helping clean the building or the executive vice president. Everyone in our organization is treated with respect and as we would like to be treated. These things were instilled in me by my father. We have to run a business and make a profit, but we’re not going to cut corners or treat anyone badly just to make a profit.
American: You can see the comparisons and contrasts between your business and your father’s day job. There is a shared sense of ambition, scope and scale. Acquire businesses, add businesses, and grow. That’s what he’s always done. In contrast, he was always selling things that everyone knew the world needed – technology and supply chain solutions – whereas you sell people things whose market value is much less obvious. That’s what I’m doing. With all the things you could be doing, what kind of pushback or feedback did you receive when you said this is what you wanted to do?
Steward: I have always had a passion for visual art. My father told me early on, “If you do what you love, you’ll never have to work.” He has always instilled in us to follow our passions and dreams. And what we do is a commodity product, and certainly there are other cartoon companies and animation companies, but we’re very different. No other company focuses on diverse content and collaborates with diverse creators. We are leading the way by collaborating with diverse creators, Black artists and writers, and other people of color who have traditionally been marginalized. The types of stories we put together from the perspectives of diverse creators are what a lot of companies rely on us to do, whether it’s HBO or Nickelodeon. We help them discover the work and stories of diverse creators.
American: Now comes another big looming figure that isn’t you or your company. That’s the 2018 film Black Panther. I know it’s a big studio production and not similar to your work in that sense, but when it happened, I was like, “Dave Steward recognized this potential before anyone else.” I thought. Did the events of Black Panther open any doors for you?
Steward: It was one of three things that happened at about the same time. black leopard It was important because it showed Hollywood executives that black content by black creators is important and can be very lucrative. The other thing, sadly, was George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement. Suddenly, all of these companies were focused on diversifying their content and dispelling years of marginalization of Black creators, executives, and others. And for us, it was an opportunity to produce and be a part of it. hair love And its success. In addition to these changes in the environment, there was also a unique trajectory of success that we had built. hair love It helped put us in the spotlight.
American: Looking at your track record, for you “diversity” is not just a slang term for “black people.” The staff and content are truly diverse. What is your diversity strategy?
Steward: It’s not exactly written on paper. Our strategy is our mission, and it’s our diverse stories that are truly told. Telling diverse stories is very important to us. And it’s important to include people who look like the people we portray on screen. So if I’m creating a Native American story about a Native American group, I’m going to have people representing that Native American group in important positions on the creative team. Because of that mission, we naturally attract a diverse staff. Our team has grown to be naturally diverse due to the types of things we do in the market.
American: Is there a way to monitor content diversity?
Steward: It starts by looking at the market in general. If you look at children’s content in recent years, there have been a number of shows that have been greenlit and produced that feature black girls. However, there aren’t that many shows starring black boys. Therefore, we need shows that feature more black boys. I need to find a show that features a young Hispanic boy. We find a hole and create and seek out content that can fill that hole. Content buyers tend to move almost in herds. When you find one opportunity, everything tends to shift in that particular direction, leaving holes in other areas. So we make sure we have representation across the board.
American: You founded Lion Forge in St. Louis. Now you have to have tentacles on both coasts. Are you still a St. Louis resident?
Steward: I’m here in St. Louis. I was born and raised here. I want my kids to grow up here. And they’re very involved in the school system here. I just travel to Los Angeles every month to do what I need to do.
American: Why did you want to raise your family in St. Louis?
Steward: I think especially when you go to big cities like New York and Los Angeles, you start to have different values than you do here in the Midwest. I think life is a little less complicated here in St. Louis, for example. There’s still some kind of common agreement about right and wrong, and I think that’s hard to come by anywhere else. I think it’s important that my kids engage with the right North Star so they can cope with whatever happens in the world.
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