About Brian
Brian Lawton is a partner in Caldwell’s Financial Services Practice and a member of the firm’s Richmond office. Brian brings a unique perspective to search, leveraging 20 years of experience in P&L ownership and strategic leadership roles in the financial services industry.
With experience serving in many of the positions he now recruits for, Brian can scope out or create new roles and deeply assess subject matter expertise in addition to leadership and cultural fit. He has led C-suite and senior executive searches for clients in financial services, hospitality and beyond, focusing on roles in lending strategy, P&L heads, credit, risk management, performance marketing, analytics, operations, decision science and more.
Experience
Brian joined Caldwell from Lingua Franca, a retained executive search firm placing candidates in strategic and analytic roles. Prior to founding Lingua Franca, he served on the leadership team of AQN Strategies, a strategy consulting firm, where he led a practice performing due diligence advisory work for private equity firms assessing lenders in M&A transactions and executed credit strategy projects for regional banks and FinTech companies.
Previously, Brian spent nearly 20 years in P&L ownership and strategic leadership roles at Capital One, heading teams in customer acquisition, underwriting, credit risk management, marketing, product development, portfolio and customer management, operations and corporate training. His experience includes lending and deposit products across consumer and small business customers, and he led staff functions in credit risk management (second line of defense) and corporate training. As one of a very select few Credit Officers at Capital One, he was authorized to make go-to-market decisions involving extension of credit, pricing changes, new product launches and other decisions impacting profitability and creditworthiness. He began his career as a business analyst at American Management Systems.
Education
Brian holds an MBA from The Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, where he graduated as a Fuqua Scholar. He also has a dual BA in both economics and foreign affairs from the University of Virginia.
Recent Feedback
“Best-in-class, end-to-end recruiting experience with a highly experienced and energetic team.” – Chief Executive Officer, Sustainable financial lending platform
“Brian Lawton was a pleasure to work with. He is detailed, deliberate and highly professional. His expertise was critical in our decision making.” – Chief Executive Officer, American investment management firm
“The quality of candidates was exceptional and the process was very thoughtful, thorough and transparent. The entire time, I never felt pushed into any candidate/decision.” – Julia Timofeyeva, Chief Risk Officer, Mariner Finance
