Jim Lawson

As President of D/Cipher, Jim Lawson oversees the growth strategy and evolution of DDM’s ground-breaking intent-targeting advertising solution, D/Cipher.

He was previously CEO of AdTheorent, a programmatic digital advertising leader, where he focused on the company’s aggressive growth, innovation and technology leadership. As a founding member of AdTheorent in 2012 and CEO since January 2019, Jim led the company from a startup to a publicly traded company and market leader, culminating in June, 2024, with a successful sale to leading North American private equity firm Novacap and merger with Cadent, Inc. While at AdTheorent, Jim led the development of AdTheorent’s award-winning products, which have been recognized with industry accolades such as Frost & Sullivan’s Digital Advertising Leadership Award (eight-time recipient), the Artificial Intelligence Excellence Awards, the Drum Digital Advertising Awards, the Digiday Media Awards (Best AdTech Platform) and the Digiday Technology Awards (Best Buy-Side Programmatic Platform).

Prior to joining AdTheorent, Jim co-founded Augme Mobile in 2008, which later became publicly traded Augme Technologies, Inc. Before turning his focus to technology ventures and emerging businesses, Jim was a Partner in the Washington, DC office of the law firm McDermott, Will, Emery, LLP, where he represented Fortune 100 companies and growing businesses in both litigation and corporate counseling capacities. Jim was also a Managing Partner of Mogility Capital, one of the initial investors in AdTheorent.

Jim is a graduate of Bucknell University (1994) and Loyola University Chicago School of Law (1997).