About Lawrence

Lawrence is a strategic architect, founder-visionary, and operational executive chairman with more than 40 years of experience building, scaling, and transforming businesses at the intersection of innovation, finance, media, and technology. A Vanderbilt Law graduate, he has built a career around identifying fragmented markets, engineering scalable platforms, and aligning disruptive growth with disciplined governance and fiduciary integrity.

His experience spans corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, operational leadership, and institutional oversight. After beginning his career in Corporate Finance and M&A at Shearman & Sterling, Lawrence went on to senior leadership roles at Viacom, USA Networks, and Citibank, where he developed deep expertise in complex transactions, business affairs, and strategic operations.

Throughout his career, Lawrence has specialized in what he describes as “Founders-Logic” — the ability to connect bold product vision with the operational rigor, financial controls, audit readiness, and compliance standards required by sophisticated investors and Fortune 500 enterprises. This approach became central to the creation and growth of Cross MediaWorks, the private equity-backed family of companies he co-founded and led. The business pioneered programmatic media sales within an unwired advertising network and ultimately completed a successful $300M+ M&A roll-up before being transacted in 2013 at nearly six times invested capital and more than a 40% IRR. The platform is now known as Cadent.

Today, Lawrence serves as Founder and Executive Chairman of Thnks, where he acts as a strategic principal to the CEO of Applied Gratitude Inc. He oversees high-level initiatives across pricing strategy, capital allocation, sales execution, and product innovation, while helping position the company for sustained organic growth and strategic expansion.

In addition to his executive leadership roles, Lawrence has served as a director and advisor to a range of media and media services companies, helping organizations strengthen operational processes, improve financial reporting and controls, drive efficiencies, and prepare for financings, acquisitions, and exits.

He currently serves on the Board of Advisors for Vanderbilt University Law School, Lawrence brings a unique combination of legal training, transactional expertise, operational discipline, and founder-driven vision to every organization he serves.