Mark J. Lawless
Principal

Mark Lawless is a Principal Consultant with Demand Planning LLC, providing consulting and advisory services for businesses of all sizes both private and public. Mark has consulted for numerous Fortune 1000 companies on issues of business planning, finance, and forecasting. In the restaurant industry, these have included JB Restaurants Inc., Ponderosa Inc., American Hospitality Concepts Inc., and the Massachusetts Restaurant Association. Other industry sectors have included companies such as America Online (AOL), Bombardier, Vancouver City Credit Union, Wachovia Financial Services, Wellpoint/Unicare, Wyeth Healthcare Products, Tyco Healthcare Products, Gap Inc., Cadbury-Schweppes Americas Inc., Syngenta, Carhartt, Gerber, S.C. Johnson, DePuy Orthopedics (Division of Johnson & Johnson), Rolls-Royce, and Micron Technology. His specialty consulting areas include Corporate Finance, Operations Forecasting & Planning, Strategic Forecasting, Financial Planning & Budgeting, and related quantitative and structural disciplines.

Mark has also served as a Financial Advisor for UBS, a global wealth management firm headquartered in Zurich Switzerland. He was the chief financial officer for Ground Round Inc., a large public chain restaurant company in Braintree MA (subsequently taken private with a Private Equity firm in Boston MA). He served as the Chief Financial Officer and the Chief Business Operations Officer for the National Fire Protection Association, a not-for-profit and medium sized publishing enterprise in Quincy MA specializing in the publication of engineering standards and related training materials for use in the architecture, construction, risk management, insurance, and fire protection industries. Mark served as the Chief Planning Officer for Ponderosa Inc., a large public chain restaurant company in Dayton OH and for the Consumer Products Group of Hanson Industries, the U.S. subsidiary of Hanson PLC, a large public British holding company headquartered in London England. He also held financial and planning positions in manufacturing operations and in the business systems & software industries for companies such as Chrysler Corporation and NCR Corporation.

Mark holds an undergraduate degree in Economics, as well as graduate degrees in Economics, Finance, and Accounting. He is an alumnus of Southern Illinois University (Edwardsville), Boston College, Bentley College, and Washington University (St. Louis). In addition to his long-time memberships in the American Economic Association, American Finance Association, and National Association for Business Economics, he is also a lifetime member of Financial Executives International.