David Grain and Stefan Kaluzny have both become billionaires through businesses they spent decades building, without the family fortunes or celebrity profiles associated with some of America’s wealthiest people.
Grain is the founder of Grain Management, a private equity firm with $6–10 billion in assets under management, focused on cell towers, fiber-optic cable, data centers and wireless spectrum — the infrastructure that supports mobile networks, internet access and data storage. Kaluzny co-founded Sycamore Partners, which controls more than $13 billion and owns, among other companies, Staples, Belk, Hot Topic, Payless and Eddie Bauer, brands that were once fixtures of American shopping malls. On the current Forbes count, both men have crossed into ten-figure territory: Grain at $2.3 billion, Kaluzny at $1.3 billion.
Look at how the two fortunes were built, though, and a common approach emerges: both men got rich owning essential, unglamorous assets, in sectors far from the consumer technology and entertainment businesses that produce most well-known billionaires.
Neither man has the public profile of many other billionaires. Together, the two firms manage roughly $20 billion in assets, several times the men’s combined personal fortune of $3.6 billion, a figure that would not place either man on the Forbes 400, the American list, which currently cuts off above $3 billion. Both men have built their fortunes in industries where investment opportunities are less visible to the public than those in consumer technology. What follows is how each of them did it.
David Grain: From Wall Street to Wireless Towers
Reginald Lewis is a name that deserves to be better known, and he appears in Grain’s story before either fortune does. Grain was born in Brooklyn in 1962 and studied at the College of the Holy Cross. While he was completing his MBA at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, Lewis executed the leveraged buyout of Beatrice Foods, then the largest deal ever completed by a Black-owned company. Tuck’s own account of Grain’s career says the moment fundamentally reshaped his sense of what was achievable in high finance.
Grain began his career at Drexel Burnham Lambert before moving to Morgan Stanley, where he became a principal within two years. His work concentrated on telecommunications, media and technology. He later moved from banking into operations, serving as a senior vice president at AT&T Broadband, running its New England region, on the view that operational experience would make him a stronger investor. The turning point came at Pinnacle Towers, a distressed wireless infrastructure company. Grain led its turnaround, brought it out of bankruptcy, rebranded it as Global Signal and took it public, establishing himself as a specialist in wireless infrastructure. In 2007, he founded Grain Management.
Grain Management invests in telecommunications infrastructure, including wireless towers, fiber-optic networks and spectrum. These assets can generate revenue regardless of which consumer applications become popular.
The firm’s deals have followed that logic. It acquired the Quintillion fiber-optic network in Alaska, which serves communities where reliable broadband infrastructure has historically been limited, and it holds 15 megahertz of spectrum in T-Mobile’s 800 MHz band. It has also invested in regional broadband markets where competition is limited and demand is growing.
His Forbes profile lists a net worth of $2.3 billion, along with board seats at Dell Technologies and Southern Company and an appointment by President Obama to the National Infrastructure Advisory Council. Beyond that, there is little public trace of him. His arrival on the list is also a milestone: Grain is one of the few Black founders to build a multibillion-dollar private equity firm, and he did it in infrastructure rather than the entertainment and media industries where many prominent Black fortunes have been made. He and his wife Lisa run the Grain Fellows Program, which provides SAT preparation, college admissions counseling, application fee coverage and career mentorship to low-income students, and he serves as vice chair of the advisory council for the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Stefan Kaluzny: From the Lower East Side to Sycamore Partners
Kaluzny grew up on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, raised by a schoolteacher and a pianist. He earned a history degree from Yale and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he graduated as a Baker Scholar, a distinction given to roughly the top five percent of each class. He began his career in consulting at Bain & Company and LEK. In 1994, he co-founded Delray Farms, a grocery chain selling fresh produce and specialty foods in low-income Hispanic neighborhoods in Chicago. Running an operating business rather than an investment fund gave him direct exposure to supply chains, margins and customer behavior in retail.
He then spent more than a decade as a managing director at Golden Gate Capital, which he joined at its founding in 2000. There he settled on the idea that still guides his investing: distressed companies usually suffer from poor capital structures, not broken brands. In 2011, he co-founded Sycamore Partners to act on it.
Sycamore saw an opportunity to acquire established retail brands at discounted valuations as competitors retreated from the sector.
The firm combined financial restructuring with operational fixes: supply chains, corporate debt and real estate footprints. Its portfolio now includes Belk, Hot Topic, Staples, Payless and Eddie Bauer. Its roughly $10 billion acquisition of Walgreens was another major deal, although Kaluzny has maintained a relatively low public profile. Outside Sycamore, he serves on Yale University’s Investment Committee, as a trustee of Phillips Academy, and on the board of Friends of the High Line in New York City. His Forbes profile runs a few paragraphs, and that is roughly the extent of his public presence.
Grain’s investments focus on telecommunications infrastructure, while Kaluzny has concentrated on retail and consumer businesses. Their careers illustrate two different approaches to private equity, built around assets and companies that can generate value over many years. Neither has relied on a high public profile to build a multibillion-dollar fortune.
Frequently Asked Questions the Newest Black Billionaires
Who are David Grain and Stefan Kaluzny?
David Grain and Stefan Kaluzny are American private equity investors who have recently joined Forbes’ billionaire rankings. Grain founded Grain Management, a firm focused on telecommunications infrastructure, and Kaluzny co-founded Sycamore Partners, a firm specializing in retail investments.
Are David Grain and Stefan Kaluzny self-made billionaires?
Yes. Neither man inherited wealth, and both spent decades building their firms before reaching ten figures. Grain worked through Wall Street and corporate telecommunications roles before founding Grain Management in 2007, while Kaluzny built operating and investing experience over roughly fifteen years before co-founding Sycamore Partners in 2011.
What are David Grain and Stefan Kaluzny’s net worths?
Forbes lists Grain’s net worth at $2.3 billion and Kaluzny’s at $1.3 billion, a combined $3.6 billion. Most of the underlying value sits in their firms, which together control roughly $20 billion in assets.
How did David Grain make his money?
Grain built his fortune through Grain Management, which he founded in 2007 after earlier roles at Drexel Burnham Lambert, Morgan Stanley and AT&T Broadband. He established himself in the sector by leading the turnaround of Pinnacle Towers, which he rebranded as Global Signal and took public. His firm invests in cell towers, fiber-optic networks, data centers and wireless spectrum.
How did Stefan Kaluzny make his money?
Kaluzny made his fortune through Sycamore Partners, which acquires established retail brands at discounted valuations and restructures them. Before co-founding the firm in 2011, he spent more than a decade at Golden Gate Capital and earlier ran Delray Farms, a grocery chain he co-founded in 1994. Sycamore’s roughly $10 billion acquisition of Walgreens pushed him into the billionaire tier.
What does Grain Management invest in?
The firm invests in telecommunications infrastructure, including wireless towers, fiber-optic networks, data centers and spectrum. Its deals include the Quintillion fiber-optic network in Alaska, which serves communities where reliable broadband has historically been limited, and 15 megahertz of spectrum in T-Mobile’s 800 MHz band. These assets generate revenue regardless of which consumer applications become popular.
What companies does Sycamore Partners own?
Sycamore’s portfolio has included Staples, Belk, Hot Topic, Payless ShoeSource and Eddie Bauer, among other retail brands. The firm combines financial restructuring with operational improvements to supply chains, corporate debt and real estate.
Why are David Grain and Stefan Kaluzny not better known?
Private equity executives rarely receive consumer media attention, and neither man has pursued a public profile. Their businesses also sit outside the consumer technology and entertainment sectors that generate most well-known billionaires, so their work attracts industry coverage rather than headlines.
Who is Reginald Lewis, and what is his connection to David Grain?
Reginald Lewis was a financier who executed the leveraged buyout of Beatrice Foods, then the largest deal ever completed by a Black-owned company. Grain, who was completing his MBA at Dartmouth’s Tuck School at the time, has said the moment reshaped his sense of what was achievable in high finance.
Is David Grain one of the few Black billionaires in private equity?
Yes. Grain is one of a small number of Black founders to build a multibillion-dollar private equity firm, and he appears among the 27 Black billionaires on Forbes’ current count. His fortune comes from infrastructure rather than the entertainment, sports and media industries where many prominent Black fortunes have been made.
What is the Grain Fellows Program?
The Grain Fellows Program is a philanthropic initiative founded by David Grain and his wife Lisa. It provides SAT preparation, college admissions counseling, application fee coverage and career mentorship to low-income students. Grain also serves as vice chair of the advisory council for the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
