Larry Gitlin is a seasoned business executive, entrepreneur, and strategic advisor whose career spans more than 25 years of leadership at the intersection of technology, media, telecommunications, automotive, digital distribution, and business development. From the production environments of Hollywood to the emergence of Internet video and content delivery networks, and from Fortune 500 corporate strategy to entrepreneurial company building, Larry has consistently operated where innovation must be transformed into practical business results. His career reflects a distinctive combination of creative-industry knowledge, technical understanding, operational leadership, strategic partnerships, and revenue-focused execution.
Larry began his professional journey in Hollywood, spending more than a decade working as a Production Manager, Line Producer, and Producer across television, film, commercials, and video. Those formative years provided an intensive education in leadership, budgeting, production logistics, personnel management, deadlines, and the coordination of complex projects involving diverse creative and technical teams. His contributions to the industry led to professional affiliations with organizations including the Director’s Guild of America, the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the Producers Guild, and NATPE. The experience established a foundation that would later allow him to bridge the historically separate worlds of entertainment, technology, telecommunications, and digital distribution.
As the Internet began transforming how audiences consumed media, Larry moved to the forefront of that transition. At INTERVU, an early innovator in distributed content delivery network technology, he served as Director of Broadcast Technologies and helped pioneer streaming-media and CDN distribution models that anticipated today’s Internet-based media ecosystem. He created and led production, content acquisition, broadcast, and field operations supporting Internet audio and video delivery and worked with organizations including NBC, Turner, Showtime, CNN, MSNBC, Fox, Bloomberg Television, and others. Larry also headed the project team that built VideoSeeker.com for NBC, described in his professional history as the world’s first search engine for streaming media. INTERVU was subsequently acquired by Akamai Technologies in a multibillion-dollar transaction, marking an important chapter in the commercialization of Internet content delivery.
Larry continued his entrepreneurial progression as President and COO of World Streaming Network, where he helped create an enhanced streaming network and service-management platform incorporating IPTV, e-commerce, wireless applications, content delivery infrastructure, and related technologies. He participated with his executive partners in raising $8 million in financing and developed content relationships with major entertainment organizations including HBO, Showtime, New Line, Starz/Encore, Disney, Lifetime, A&E, MSNBC, and CNN. His responsibilities extended well beyond business development: he helped build the management team, develop commercial models for digital content, and create an infrastructure designed to manage streaming-media delivery, billing, metering, reporting, and audience measurement.
At Qwest Communications, Larry served as Vice President of Business Development and became a core member of the company’s corporate business development organization. His work centered on identifying and commercializing new sources of enterprise revenue. He created and launched the market trial for Media Express, an electronic media-transfer offering for the entertainment industry with potential annual revenue exceeding $100 million, and co-created a comprehensive critical-infrastructure protection security initiative described as representing a potential $350 million annual business opportunity. Larry also negotiated strategic partnerships, participated in M&A and capital-raising activities, and contributed to corporate strategic evaluations involving digital media, Wi-Fi, telecommunications technologies, and prospective relationships with major technology and entertainment organizations.
Larry subsequently brought that combination of corporate strategy and entrepreneurial execution to Handheld Entertainment, where he served as Vice President of Business Development. He created and led the company’s web-based entertainment division and digital media download and streaming network, developing an ecosystem involving advertisers, film and television companies, music providers, applications, games, retailers, technology partners, and consumer products. He built and managed the division, led content acquisition and strategic partnerships, contributed to product-development initiatives, and participated in fundraising efforts that raised more than $100 million before the company went public. His responsibilities also extended into international customer operations, CRM, technical support, media encoding, website operations, and major retail delivery initiatives, demonstrating the breadth of his operating capabilities.
Entrepreneurship and consulting became increasingly important dimensions of Larry’s career. Through Tech BD, he advised organizations on operations management, corporate development, digital-media strategy, business development, audience creation, marketing, M&A, product positioning, and revenue generation. His engagements crossed software, telecommunications, streaming technology, analytics, media, mobile technology, and other industries, giving him experience evaluating businesses from multiple perspectives rather than through a single functional lens. He also founded 3 Screen Entertainment, a media production, marketing, technology-consulting, and multi-platform distribution company built around the emerging convergence of cable, satellite, Internet streaming, mobile distribution, targeted advertising, subscriptions, social media, and digital commerce.
Larry’s company-building experience was further demonstrated as Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of APR / Our American Network / Our American Stories. In that role, he helped create the organization and managed its daily operations while overseeing IP, Internet television and radio, technology integration, website development, databases, and distribution infrastructure. His experience there reinforced a recurring theme throughout his career: Larry is comfortable operating simultaneously at the strategic and tactical levels, helping establish the vision for an enterprise while also building the systems, partnerships, processes, and teams required to execute it.
More recently, Larry expanded his expertise within the automotive industry through an eight-year tenure with Cox Automotive. As a Dealer Success Consultant and strategic business development and business consultant, he worked with automotive dealers to optimize revenue and business operations while applying sophisticated advertising, website, and analytics tools. He participated on the NVision Seal Team working to optimize a new analytics platform and collaborated with the national UI/UX team to improve features and navigation surrounding its rollout. This experience added another dimension to Larry’s career by applying his longstanding strengths in data, digital platforms, customer engagement, operations, and revenue generation to a major technology-enabled automotive environment.
Across these roles, Larry has developed particular expertise in strategic partnerships, business development, company building, operations, product development, multi-platform distribution, digital media, audience development, connected advertising, analytics, mobile communications, CRM, e-commerce, digital marketing, and revenue strategy. His international exposure includes work and business experience involving the United Kingdom, France, Japan, and Italy. He has also shared his industry knowledge through speaking engagements at venues including CES, UCLA Extension, Digital Hollywood, i-Hollywood forums, and mobile-media events.
Larry’s value as a board member or strategic advisor comes from the breadth of that experience and his ability to connect disciplines that organizations frequently treat separately. He understands technology but approaches it through the lens of commercial value. He understands content and marketing while recognizing that audience engagement must ultimately connect to sustainable economics. He understands corporate strategy while having spent substantial portions of his career actually building organizations, products, teams, partnerships, and operating systems. For startups and mid-cap organizations confronting growth, commercialization, digital transformation, strategic partnership, or operational challenges, this combination enables him to evaluate both where a business should go and what must happen to get it there.
At this stage of his career, Larry is interested in bringing his experience to organizations where engaged board leadership can make a measurable difference. He is particularly drawn to opportunities involving business development, operations, product development, technology-enabled growth, media, telecommunications, automotive, SaaS, digital platforms, and adjacent industries, while remaining open to new verticals outside healthcare. His motivation for board service is fundamentally practical: to help leadership teams make better decisions, identify opportunities, avoid costly mistakes, build valuable relationships, and convert ambitious strategies into executable plans.
Beyond his professional pursuits, Larry’s interests in music, drumming, and cycling reflect the energy, discipline, and curiosity that have accompanied his career. Whether working with an emerging company or an established enterprise, his professional philosophy is grounded in creating tangible value rather than simply providing high-level observations. His career has unfolded through periods of extraordinary technological change, giving him firsthand experience with what happens when emerging technologies move from experimentation into mainstream adoption—and what leaders must do to capitalize on those transitions.
Larry Gitlin ultimately brings to the boardroom the perspective of an operator, entrepreneur, strategist, business builder, and technology commercialization executive. His experience spans the evolution from traditional film and television production to streaming media, content delivery networks, mobile platforms, digital advertising, analytics, connected automotive solutions, and emerging data-driven business models. That progression has given him an unusually broad view of how industries evolve and how companies can respond. His objective in board and advisory service is to put that experience to work helping organizations recognize change early, create sustainable revenue, build productive partnerships, strengthen operations, and make decisions capable of generating enduring enterprise value.
Character:
Larry brings an entrepreneurial, hands-on mentality to leadership, combining a willingness to challenge established approaches with a commitment to producing practical business outcomes. His progression from Hollywood production to technology ventures, Fortune 500 strategy, entrepreneurship, consulting, and automotive solutions demonstrates adaptability, persistence, curiosity, and a sustained willingness to embrace change.
Knowledge:
He possesses multidisciplinary expertise encompassing business development, operations, digital media, telecommunications, content distribution, advertising, analytics, product development, automotive technology, marketing, and emerging digital platforms. His experience participating in the formative years of Internet streaming and CDN technology gives him historical perspective as well as practical insight into how disruptive technologies develop into scalable businesses.
Strategic:
Larry approaches strategy as the connection between opportunity and execution, identifying markets, partnerships, technologies, revenue models, and organizational capabilities that can create measurable enterprise value. His experience developing new businesses, structuring partnerships, evaluating emerging technologies, participating in M&A and fundraising, and launching commercial initiatives allows him to examine strategic decisions through both growth and operational lenses.
Communication:
Spending his career translating complex ideas across technical, creative, financial, operational, and executive audiences. His experience negotiating with major corporations, developing partnerships, training sales and marketing organizations, presenting at industry events, and advising management teams enables him to communicate sophisticated business concepts in ways that support alignment, decision-making, and action.
