What does a typical work day look like?
There’s no real ‘typical’ day, which is one of the things I enjoy most about the role. It’s a mix of strategic thinking, commercial decision-making and working with teams across our markets.
A day might start with looking at how films are performing and whether we’re making the best use of our screens or thinking about how we expect audience demand to develop over the weeks and months ahead so we can plan better as a Group.
Being part of the Group team also means working across functions and markets on some of our most strategic projects, whether that’s reviewing the performance of EPIC – our new Premium Large Format – as we scale it across markets, or leading the international rollout of our AI scheduling technology, which helps our content teams make smarter, more data-led programming decisions. And, of course, whenever I can fit it in, I try to get to a screening!
The moment you fell in love with the big screen
I don’t think there was one specific film or moment. I grew up going to the cinema with my parents, and as I got older that naturally became trips with friends. I have particularly fond memories of my university days, when Orange Wednesdays meant we could afford to go to the cinema most weeks!
There’s something about experiencing a film with an audience and hearing and feeling everyone react together in real time that simply can’t be recreated at home. It isn’t just about the film itself; it’s the whole experience around it. I feel very lucky that my job now involves helping to shape that experience for other people.
The best thing about the cinema experience?
For me, it’s the level of immersion you simply can’t replicate anywhere else. In a world full of distractions, the cinema is one of the few places where you can genuinely switch off, escape the relentless buzzing of your phone and properly lose yourself in a story.
More recently, I’ve had the chance to experience the cinema through my daughter’s eyes. She’s three and a half, and I recently took her to one of our ‘Big Shorts’ screenings for pre-school children to see The Tiger Who Came to Tea. She loved the whole experience so much that she now asks to go back most weekends! Seeing that excitement through a new generation has been a lovely reminder of what makes the big screen so special.