James Lawrence

James Lawrence was appointed by Gov. Tim Walz as chair of the MAC Board of Commissioners in January 2026. He had previously been appointed to the MAC board in February 2021 by Walz to represent District C.

Lawrence is chairman of Lake Harriet Capital LLC, a private investment firm. Previously, Lawrence served as chairman of Rothschild North America and earlier as chief executive officer of Rothschild North America and as co-head of global investment banking at Rothschild from 2010 to 2015.

Prior to Rothschild, Lawrence was chief financial officer of the Anglo Dutch company, Unilever, and he served as executive director on the boards of Unilever NV and Unilever PLC. He joined Unilever in 2007 after serving for nine years as the vice chairman and chief financial officer of General Mills, where he also had responsibility for General Mills’ international business. Prior to General Mills, Lawrence was executive vice president and chief financial officer of Northwest Airlines from 1996 to 1998. Lawrence served as CEO of Pepsi-Cola Asia, Middle East, Africa from 1992 to 1996.

In 1983, Lawrence cofounded the LEK Partnership in London, which today employs 3,000 professionals. Before that, he was partner of Bain and Company, having opened their London and Munich offices. His first job after business school was working for the Boston Consulting Group.

Lawrence is currently a non-executive director of AerCap — the world’s largest owner and lessor of airplanes, jet engines and helicopters — and was a board member of IAG (International Consolidated Airlines Group) until 2018. Since 1990, Lawrence has served on 18 public company boards, several private company boards and numerous nonprofit boards.

Lawrence earned a Bachelor of Arts in economics from Yale University and a Master of Business Administration with distinction from Harvard Business School.