# Lawrence Herman

> Lawrence Herman is the Chief Financial Officer and AI Strategy Leader at Cents, the all-in-one operating system for laundromats and dry cleaners. A payments and fintech finance veteran, he has steered the books at Dwolla, Accrete, and Paxful, and logged earlier stretches at Mastercard, American Express, Dataminr, EY, Citi, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs. Harvard-trained in economics, he is known for calm during industry cycles, a preacher's zeal for financial literacy, and a habit of walking into every meeting with three discussion points and three asks.

- **Role:** Chief Financial Officer & AI Strategy Leader at Cents
- **Organizations:** Cents (trycents.com), Dwolla, Accrete, Paxful, Dataminr, The F Suite, Mastercard, American Express, EY, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** B.A. in Economics, Harvard University, Millburn Senior High School
- **Known for:** Secured $400M Series E funding at a $1.4B valuation while at Dataminr, Drove 60% annual revenue growth in his first year at Paxful, Has held CFO roles across payments, crypto, AI, and SaaS

## Career timeline

- **Early career** — Began at Goldman Sachs; interned in Tokyo
- **Early career** — American Express - Travelers Cheque and Prepaid business, his entry into payments
- **10+ years (combined)** — Finance leadership and strategic planning at Mastercard and American Express
- **2010s** — Director, FP&A at Dataminr; helped secure $400M Series E at a $1.4B valuation
- **2020-2021** — SVP and Head of Finance at Paxful; drove 60% annual revenue growth in first year
- **2021-2022** — CFO at Accrete, an AI machine learning company
- **2022** — Appointed CFO of Dwolla (account-to-account payments platform)
- **2024-09** — Joined Cents as Chief Financial Officer
- **2026** — Serving as CFO and AI Strategy Leader at Cents during its Series C era

## Achievements

- Secured $400M Series E funding at a $1.4B valuation while at Dataminr
- Drove 60% annual revenue growth in his first year at Paxful
- Has held CFO roles across payments, crypto, AI, and SaaS
- Founding member of The F Suite, a community for finance leaders
- Steers finance and AI strategy at Cents, which has raised roughly $185M total including a $140M Series C

## Latest updates

- **2024-09** — Joined Cents as Chief Financial Officer.
- **2026-03** — Cents' most recent raise (Series C, $140M) closed around this period, with Herman leading finance and AI strategy.

## Links

- Website: https://trycents.com
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/lawrencekherman

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/lawrence-herman
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-03