Dec. 7, 2020

The owners of Lawrence & Schiller, including CEO Scott Lawrence, have transitioned daily management and operations of the marketing and advertising agency to a six-person leadership team.

Lawrence, a co-owner, will remain president and CEO for the next five years, he said.

Co-owners John Pohlman, Mark Glissendorf and Dan Edmonds also are stepping back from their day-to-day roles and will serve as the agency’s board of directors, with Pohlman serving as chairman.

“I’ve had my finger on the button for 20 years, and it’s time to pull that finger off,” Lawrence said. “We have younger people, and we need fresh ideas and innovation and fresh perspectives, and there are a lot of things this team can do to lead this great team of people we have.”

The new leadership team taking over daily management and operations is:

• Ryan Budmayr, vice president of public relations and business development.
• Ryan Gardner, vice president of finance.
• Jamie Hegge, vice president of client service.
• Kristy Laue, vice president of creative.
• Laura Mitchell, vice president of marketing.
• Tracy Saathoff, vice president of strategy.

The new leadership team also will transition from managing roles to full ownership over the next five years.

Lawrence said he watched the team step up during the pandemic and was motivated to give them additional opportunities to lead.

“Leadership is not given. Leadership is earned, and they earned it during that stretch,” he said. “They gutted it out. They really went after it, and it made me convinced it was the right thing to do.”

The 62-person firm finished the year strong after navigating through contracts “canceling faster than we could keep up with,” Lawrence said.

The agency’s tourism and restaurant clients shut down advertising early, but clients such as First Premier Bank and Sanford Health continued to have demand for marketing support. As the year went along, tourism ramped back up.

“The industry came back strong, and fortunately we have some extremely good clients at the state who have been steady through this, plus I think we picked up three new clients in Minneapolis during this,” Lawrence said.

While he’s transitioning out of daily management, he plans to continue serving in multiple community leadership roles. He’s on the executive committee of the Greater Sioux Falls Chamber of Commerce, in line to be chairman during his final year as CEO at L&S, and he serves on boards for the South Dakota Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra and the National Music Museum.

“I want to give back because Sioux Falls has given so much to me and my business,” he said. “And I have a lot of contacts and relationships and plan on staying on top of those and help grow the business. I’m just too energized not to do that. I’m not going anywhere.”