Charles Ashby Lewis

Charles Lewis

Charles Ashby Lewis is Chairman of the Lewis-Sebring Family Foundation and Managing Partner of Coach House Capital, his family office. He is a retired Vice Chairman, Investment Banking, of Merrill Lynch & Co., having worked for it and a predecessor from 1970 to 2004. Chuck was Assistant to the President and CEO of Computer Technology, Inc., in 1969-70, and served in the US Army from 1966 to 1969, attaining the rank of Captain.

Chuck was educated at Amherst College, graduating in 1964, and he received his M.B.A. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1966. He received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Amherst in 2003 and an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Grinnell College in 2015.

Chuck was a Trustee of the University of Chicago. He is involved with the UChicago Urban Education Institute (UEI) as a member of its Consortium Investor Council, the Board of Directors of its UChicago Impact LLC unit, and the Advisory Council of its UChicago Charter School. He is also a life member of the College Advisory Council and a member of the Division of the Social Sciences Advisory Council.

He is a Life Trustee of Amherst and a member of its Loeb Center Advisory Council. He is a Life Trustee of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and a Trustee of the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago. He is on the Leadership Council of the Chicago Public Education Fund and a member of the Commercial Club of Chicago.  

He was a member of the National Finance Committees for both Obama presidential campaigns and has authored numerous commentaries he calls Obamagrams. He has also authored PetePosts and BidenBriefs. He was a member of the board of directors of OneGoal and Independent Maps of Illinois and was a trustee of the Ravinia Festival.

Chuck is married to Penny Bender Sebring, Ph.D., a Senior Research Associate at the University of Chicago and the Co-Founder of the UChicago Consortium on School Research, a principal component of UEI. They have three children and five grandchildren.

Chuck and Penny have jointly received the key to the City of Evanston (IL) and awards from the Evanston MashUp; the McGaw YMCA; the Second Baptist Church of Evanston; the Golden Apple Foundation; and OneGoal. Chuck also received awards from Amherst College; The Chessmen Club of the North Shore; and The People’s Music School of Chicago. He is a member of the Shaker High School (Latham, NY) Sports Hall of Fame.