Lawrence Szabo

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

SKILLS

ABOUT LAWRENCE SZABO

As Lawrence Szabo knows, climbing a mountain like Kilimanjaro is an ambitious feat.Along the way, the climber builds physical and mental strength, meets and encourages others with a shared objective, learns to anticipate and manage change, gains new perspectives, and learns through successes and setbacks. Experiences like these have shaped his leadership style, contributions as a senior media and entertainment executive, and reputation as the guy who gets it done.Lawrence has often been given some of his company’s largest challenges—turning around revenue and operational performance, growing brands in diverse markets worldwide, understanding audience trends, and creating strategic content and platform partnerships that transform businesses. A self-proclaimed member of the “geek squad,” he blends his natural curiosity, creativity, and multicultural background with sales and marketing acumen, financial planning and analysis, operations, and process expertise to look at problems from multiple angles.A thread woven throughout Lawrence’s career is that there are no successes without a collaborative team environment where sometimes the answers don’t come from the most senior people in the room. He builds relationships of trust that fuel revenue growth, market expansion worldwide, viewer loyalty, and operational excellence. His teams rely on his work ethic, personal code of conduct, and thoughtful leadership.Career Highlights:Joined ViacomCBS in 2020 as a Senior Executive in the Content Acquisition Group representing +15 brands across linear, premium pay, and streaming / OTT platforms.Led the Lionsgate North American Distribution team that was pivotal in the company’s +100% growth to +$3.68B annual revenue over 9 years. Drew upon ratings and research insights to exceed revenue targets for 8 years (2012 – 2020).Serving in a GM-level role, delivered the turnaround of MGM’s EMEA TV distribution business. Reversed a pattern of unchanged revenue results, achieving double-digit YoY growth for 5 years (2006 – 2011).Built MGM’s international home entertainment distribution business with teams in the U.K, France, Germany, and Australia. Delivered record growth and doubled the average industry index (2002 – 2006).Navigated teams through ongoing change, including ownership transitions, M&A transactions and integration, shifts in leadership and corporate strategy, and the emergence of new platforms.Content Experience: feature films, television series (scripted and unscripted), TV movies, documentaries.