Kevin Lazan

Kevin Lazan was born in 1980 in Florida to lawyer David M. Lazan and his realtor wife, Judi Lazan. He is of the Jewish faith. After completing school, he enrolled at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1998. He graduated four years later, with a Bachelor of Arts degree in legal studies and journalism.He met Rachel Platten, then an aspiring singer, in 2006 in New York. According to the ‘Stand by You’ singer, their first date was less than ideal. He took her to a “really gross, dingy, Lower East Side dungeon kind of bar”. She recalled in an interview, “But he was really embarrassed. He was like, ‘Oh my god, this is not what I meant to bring you to. Oh my god.’” However, they both acknowledge that there was an undeniable spark of attraction between them.

After almost six years of dating, he proposed to her on a tree-lined carriage walk in New England. The couple spent the next few months searching for a perfect venue. Platten did not want another “Instant wedding-in-a-box” for herself, but instead “something completely unique”. She also expressed her preference for a glamorous countryside wedding.

An excellent opportunity was found at Mount Hope Farm in Bristol, Rhode Island. They married in 2012, in a traditional Jewish ceremony. The couple had lived out of a one-bedroom condo in New York’s Battery Park City for years before moving to their present home, a three-bedroom spread a block from the beach in Santa Monica.

Kevin Lazan began his professional career as a junior agent for PuckAgency, LLC (formerly SFX Hockey) in December 2002 and held the position for the next two years, leaving in January 2005. He joined Railway Media, LLC as operation manager in August 2006, and for the following 14 months, he developed and employed operational procedures for the start-up that provided pre-loaded, personal media player rental service to a national railroad passenger company.

In 2006, he co-founded CR Media, LLC and served as the company’s strategy and operations manager, implementing short-term and long-range plans consistent with growth objectives and opening services in 43 different airport locations. As part of the company, he was instrumental in successfully pitching and instigating partnership between a major children cable TV network and a multinational car rental company for the launch of a new product offering.

Lazan returned to school to get an MBA degree from the NYU Stern School of Business in 2008. He graduated in 2010, with specializations in strategy and finance.

He was hired by Capgemini Consulting as a managing consultant, Strategy & Transformation in June 2009. Four years later, he came to Next Street as their director of NY Advisory Practice.

In January 2016, Lazan left his lucrative job at the financial service consultancy farm to open The Gables, a quaint and cosy all-day, neighbourhood counter-service cafe, that has become a popular destination for its clean Westside LA comfort food.