Verity Fox is managing director of Dominion, a Bradford-based large-format print specialist.
Her 48-strong team produces the large-format print behind some of the biggest brand activations and campaigns in the country, from Coldplay’s bespoke touring carpet to a full stadium rebrand for the Bradford Bulls, retail graphics for M&S and River Island, and centre circles for football pitches. All from an old cotton mill in BD5.
Her career path started at 16 on the production floor, rolling polytapes in the school holidays. She worked her way through A levels, a degree, and a master’s-equivalent part-time while moving through client services, HR, production, and operations.
When her dad Dominic, who founded the business, fell ill, she stepped into the MD role earlier than planned. He passed away in early 2023, and Fox has since driven £1m turnover growth and a complete rebrand for the business.
Her mother is still a director, and her husband manages finishing and warehousing.
Here, she shares a glimpse into her career journey so far…
How did you first get into your industry?
Print is in my blood really – it runs right through the family. My dad, Dominic, founded Dominion in 1983, but before that he founded another printing business – Multigraphics – with his father (my grandfather), which became a family affair with all of his three brothers joining the business. So, I grew up around it, watching the presses, hearing the industry chat and smelling the solvent inks on my parents’ clothes long before I understood what any of it meant.
I officially joined the business at 16, starting on the production floor while I studied alongside work. I never assumed I’d end up running the place – I just wanted to understand how it worked from the bottom up. That grounding in production has shaped everything about how I lead today.
What do you love about your job?
Honestly, the variety and the scale. No two briefs are ever the same – one week, we’re working on a stadium wrap for a Premier League football club, the next we’re producing a bespoke carpet for a Coldplay tour or a full retail transformation for a high-street name like M&S or River Island. There’s a real thrill in seeing something that started as a conversation end up covering an entire building or being broadcast to millions.
But the part I love most has to be the people. I came up through production, so I have huge respect for the production team, and watching someone grow – from a first day with no experience to running a department – is the most rewarding part of the job by a distance. We don’t exist simply to print; we’re here to empower, and that goes for our people as much as our clients.
Who – or what – has inspired you in your career?
My parents, without question. My dad started Dominion from litho presses in a back room at Multigraphics, but together with my mum, they built it into a business working with some of the biggest brands in the country, and they did it by working long hours and pushing hard.
One of the last things we did together was buy a major piece of production kit, my dad was poorly with cancer at the time – he walked me through the whole process. We had to view the machine we were buying in Spain, and I remember bringing the samples home and going over them with a coffee in hand. Sadly he passed away in early 2023 so never got to see our machine in situ, but he did reference that the first digital printer he bought was a Vutek and so was mine, which was a lovely full circle moment.
The biggest thing he taught me was to be honest and deal with the consequences, whatever they are. This principle still underpins how I lead and how we build trust with our clients.
What are the biggest challenges about your job?
It’s a fiercely competitive industry, and the past couple of years have been a bit of a rollercoaster, with rising material costs, higher employment costs, and economic pressure felt right across the sector. Rather than pass all of that on to clients, we’ve chosen to look inward: tightening quality control, cutting reprints, investing in automation, and getting leaner without losing what makes us, us.
And then there’s the ‘Friday screamer’ – the unthinkable, last-minute brief that lands at 4pm on a Friday and other suppliers turn down flat. I’ll admit, I love them. There’s nothing quite like watching the team pull together and co-ordinate something almost effortlessly that no one else would touch. Stressful? Always – but it’s often where we perform at our best.
Then there’s the challenge I find hard to put into words: coming back to work after having my son, Lachy. Trying to do it all – lead a business and be the mum I want to be – is a constant juggle, and the guilt is very real. Some days I feel like I’m not with Lachy enough, and other days I feel like I’m not giving enough to the business. I’m sure it’s impossible to find the right balance, so I just try to be as honest as I can be with my family and my team. And I know that many other working parents relate.
What skills have been the most crucial to you succeeding in your career so far?
Resilience, first and foremost. Stepping into the MD role while still grieving asked for mental toughness I didn’t know I had.
After that, it’s production knowledge. Most print MDs come from the sales side, whereas I came up through the floor, so I understand in detail how the work actually gets made – the automation, the colour management, the efficiency gains. This lets me build margin from the inside rather than only chasing the top line.
I also completed my CIPD L-7 in employment law part-time while working, which has proved invaluable for the people’s side and for navigating a lot of new legislation. Our culture ultimately underpins everything: get the right people, look after them, and the rest follows.
What was your first salary and what could someone getting into the industry expect to earn nowadays?
When I first started working within the business, I was on £2.60 an hour. These days, our unskilled starters being on the minimum wage, and as their skills quickly grow, so does their pay.
What I would say is that we’re committed to bringing people in and paying them fairly to learn a genuine trade – nobody should feel they can’t afford to start a career with us.
What education or training would be most useful for someone looking to follow your career path?
Honestly, none of the formal kind is essential. We take real pride in hiring people with no experience and training them – for us, attitude beats a CV every time. Some of our best people started with nothing on paper: our print manager began as a screenwasher, and our purchasing manager joined as an apprentice and now both sit on our senior leadership team.
If you’re willing to learn, roll up your sleeves, and care about doing things properly, we can teach you the rest. The industry needs more people who see it as a career rather than just a job – and that mindset is worth more than any qualification.
What advice would you have for someone looking to follow your path?
Learn the business from the ground up, whatever level you come in at. Understanding how the work is really made, how the business really runs – and surrounding yourself with people who know their part far better than you do, then genuinely trusting them – has been my single biggest advantage. You only get that by being in production, getting your hands dirty and paying attention to the experts around you.
Beyond that, just be honest, protect your team, and don’t be afraid of the big, scary briefs. Dominion feels a little like an older sibling to me – something I grew up alongside and will always be fiercely protective of – and leading with this kind of care, rather than an ego, is what continues to serve me best. Say yes to the hard things – that’s usually where the growth is.
