(Radio Iowa) – Iowa Lottery C-E-O Mat Strawn is leaving to take over as the president and C-E-O of the West Des Moines marketing and communications firm Strategic America. Strawn became on the third person to lead the Lottery when he took over in 2019, and says he is ready for a new challenge. “It really is a perfect fit for me as I look for that next leadership role to best serve my family and my professional career,” he says. The Iowa Lottery set sales records during his tenure, and he says the is due to the people he worked with.
“It’s been an amazing experience helping the Iowa Lottery tell its story, the value proposition so Iowans understand that it’s good causes like the Iowa Veterans Trust Fund to get funded when you responsibly play the lottery,” he says. Strawn had previously been the chair of the Iowa Republican party, and had his own public affairs firm when he accepted the Lottery position. Strawn’s started leading the Iowa Lottery just as the pandemic was getting underway.
“It was a crash course in learning the business because initially, As you may recall, lottery sales declined dramatically almost overnight as folks weren’t leaving their homes. So it required me to understand the business and how we could stabilize the business,” Strawn says. He says it was a time of uncertainty for the 100 plus Lottery employees.
“By law, the Iowa lottery cannot accept funds from state government. So only through the responsible sale of products does the lottery get funded. So it was an amazing, stressful time to make sure you could meet things like payroll until sales stabilized,”Strawn says. “But it gave me an up close and personal look not only at lottery operations, but an amazing, talented team that truly pulled together to support each other.” Things got back on track and the Iowa Lottery went on to set sales records buoyed by billion-dollar lotto jackpots.
Strawn says the introduction of sports betting and other forms of entertainment in recent years have forced the Lottery to shift its strategic approach. “I think one thing we did that has been very successful and drove some of that economic and sales growth at the lottery was really repositioning to major Iowa experiential prizes and a strategy to give Iowans the opportunity to be present and attend the big Iowa moment,” he says. That includes things like the State Fair, NASCAR races at the Iowa Speedway, and concerts are various venues.
The Iowa Lottery was also part of the government reorganization as it became one of the areas overseen by the Iowa Department of Revenue. And it has faced what Strawn calls headwinds with economic issues that the lottery industry nationwide has seen. “It’s focused, forced us to think about how we better manage the entire portfolio of lottery products. Within the last year, we’ve just entered a new relationship with Scientific Games to have a more shared interest model in how the lottery manages and prints its scratch tickets. And that’s a model that actually reduces risk for the state of Iowa,” he says.
Strawn will take over at Strategic American on June 8th.
