America's Public Television Stations

David Steward II is an Academy Award-winning producer who owns and operates multiple companies with a mission of creating, discovering and highlighting multicultural and diverse content in the entertainment industry.

In 2018, Steward founded Polarity, a holding company to oversee the operations of a portfolio of companies. The companies offer an array of content offerings, including graphic novels and comics, animated television, streaming and cinematic features, and gaming. Key portfolio companies include Oni Lion Forge Publishing Group, the European publishing house Magnetic Press, the original content developer Illustrated Syndicate, the animation studio Lion Forge Animation and Lion Forge Labs.

In 2019, Polarity launched the Lion Forge Animation Studio, credited for producing the “Hair Love” short film, distributed by Sony Pictures Animation and winner for Best Animated Short at the 2020 Academy Awards. Lion Forge Animation has gained recognition for highlighting animators of color, and in 2021, “Fast Company Magazine” named it one of the Most Innovative Companies in the World, placing No. 3 in the film and television category.

Among the significant entertainment deals brokered by Steward are a partnership with Wendell Scott Ventures to introduce the iconic and groundbreaking life and legacy of Wendell Scott, NASCAR’s first black racer, to audiences through films, television series, digital content, games, and more; a first-look deal with Brian Grazer and Ron Howard’s Imagine Kids + Family label; a partnership with BRON Studios on an animated television series Heiress; and a “Hair Love” spinoff series (Young Love) for HBO Max, to name just a few.

Steward’s entertainment portfolio started with the founding of The Lion Forge LLC, a St. Louis-based publisher, in 2011. Before merging with Oni Press, the company published comics and graphic novels with a mission to create content for everyone, regardless of gender identity, ethnicity or cultural background — a mission that is still maintained at Oni Lion Forge Publishing Group. The company boasted multiple publishing accolades. It’s first original graphic novel, “Andre the Giant: Closer to Heaven,” was nominated for three Glyph Awards, as well as the Dwayne McDuffie Award for Diversity, and “Lighter Than My Shadow” was voted the 2017 Graphic Novel of the Year by Amazon. The benefit collection “Puerto Rico Strong” brought home the company’s first Eisner Award in 2019 in the Best Anthology Comic category. Across multiple imprints and formats that have included licensed properties like DreamWorks’ Voltron Legendary Defender, original works from top independent creators, and the original and all-inclusive Catalyst Prime superhero universe, Lion Forge has published something for every level of comic book fan, young and old.

A past board chair of Nine PBS in St. Louis, Steward is lay vice chair of America’s Public Television Stations (APTS). He was the recipient of the APTS Advocacy Award in 2021. Steward was also the recipient of a coveted Eisner Award: the Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award, earned on behalf of the Comic Book United Fund, which he started with Binc and DC at the onset of the COVID pandemic to provide aid to comic book retailers. The fund was an offshoot of the Forge Fund he had created years earlier.

Steward graduated magna cum laude from American University in 1998 with a B.S.B.A. in international marketing. In addition, Steward served as an executive board member for the local chapter of Habitat for Humanity. He is an emeritus board member of Nine PBS and a current board member of the International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum.