Mark Lawrence

Mark Lawrence is an American entrepreneur best known as the co-founder and CEO of SpotHero, the leading digital parking reservation marketplace in North America. He started the company in Chicago in 2011 with Jeremy Smith after experiencing firsthand how broken city parking could be. Before founding SpotHero, Lawrence worked as a financial analyst at Bank of America and earned a B.S. in Finance from Bradley University.

Lawrence and his roommates initially launched SpotHero as a peer-to-peer parking app, starting with a single private spot near Wrigley Field. The concept was simple: let people rent out their driveways for Cubs games and other events. That early experiment revealed how much drivers valued easier parking, and it set the company on a path from a local side project to a national platform. Over time, SpotHero shifted toward partnerships with garages, lots, and valet operators while keeping its original mission of making parking less painful.

Today, SpotHero is one of the largest off-street parking marketplaces in North America, with reservations spanning hundreds of US cities. Lawrence has remained a founder-led CEO through intense competition, fundraising pressure, and operational complexity. His approach has combined direct customer empathy with tight execution, and he has stayed publicly associated with SpotHero's growth from a Chicago startup to an established mobility brand.