I joined Universal Pictures  Home Entertainment UK in the summer of 1998 — just before DVD exploded, and just after Universal (under Seagram) had acquired PolyGram Filmed Entertainment. I’d spent the previous eight years in home entertainment retail, mostly as a video buyer. I knew the sales teams well from the other side of the table. I’d attended their conferences as a customer. I understood how retailers thought, how they allocated shelf space, how they negotiated terms. W

I’ve written previously about what I learned at Universal, Momentum and Revolver. Each role shaped me in different ways — scale, structure, commercial discipline, entrepreneurial expansion. But the years that probably taught me the most were at Arrow Films. When I joined in 2012, it was a small, ambitious company with serious taste and limited theatrical infrastructure. There was no established department to inherit, no experienced theatrical team to lean on. For the first ti