John Wagner Photography
Angelina Lawton
CEO and Founder, Sportsdigita
Born: Edina, Minn.
Education: Arizona State University, Bachelor of Arts
While working in a senior corporate communications role for the Tampa Bay Lightning more than a decade ago, Angelina Lawton saw one seven-figure deal after another being pitched with archaic, off-brand PowerPoint presentations and knew there had to be a better way for franchises to bring their story to life.
So when she and her husband, former Lightning general manager Brian Lawton, left the organization, she founded Sportsdigita, a Minneapolis-based company whose essence is simple: “It’s PowerPoint on steroids,” she said. “It’s a platform in the cloud that we help people use for selling tickets and partnerships.”
Sportsdigita now works with more than 400 of the biggest names in sports, including iconic brands like the Dallas Cowboys, Los Angeles Lakers and New York Yankees. It provides its cloud-based presentation platform, Digideck, to teams and an array of companies including Cargill, UnitedHealth Group and Visa.
In 2015, after encountering a steep learning curve related to managing technology, Lawton tackled key issues around how to run a tech company. “How do you build? How do you do contracts? How do you bring all of your development team in house?” she said.
More recently, the utility of Sportsdigita has grown during the pandemic.
“In the last 12 months, we had 234 new features that were implemented,” Lawton said. “That’s the cadence that we work at.” — Eric Prisbell
More about Angelina
Guilty pleasure: My annual trip(s) to Cabo San Lucas. It is hard to get away from the business when you are an entrepreneur, but I enjoy my time there tremendously when I am able to sneak away.
Advice to my younger self: To take school more seriously. School is a vehicle for the future and is something I wish I would have committed myself more to. Education makes a difference!
Attributes I look for when hiring: A strong sense of urgency and strong problem-solving ability.
Woman in sports business I’d most like to meet: Because I am a business owner/entrepreneur, I tend to look at the business side of things and have always been inspired by Sara Blakely, the founder and CEO of Spanx. Might not be sports, but she is incredible!
Change I’d make related to women working in sports: I would love to see way more women in C-suite positions at sports organizations. I can’t tell you how many teams I visit where I walk into a room and am the only female in sight.
