How did Gary Barber work his way up?

From his biography at MGM:

Mr. Barber received his undergraduate and post graduate degrees from the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa. Earlier in his career, he practiced as a Chartered Accountant and Certified Public Accountant in both South Africa and the USA with Price Waterhouse.

Mr. Barber has produced numerous feature films and has run business entities in feature film production, foreign distribution, music and exhibition. From 1989 to 1997, Mr. Barber was with Morgan Creek and served as Vice Chairman and Chief Operating Officer. Prior to this, Mr. Barber served as President of Vestron International Group.

And from his Wiki page:

Barber was educated at King David School, Linksfield in Johannesburg, South Africa. He then received an Accounting degree from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Afterwards he worked as a Chartered Accountant and Certified Public Accountant in South Africa and the United States, both with Price Waterhouse.

In 1982 the horse racing fan won a trip to the Arlington Million race in Illinois. In the same year he moved to the States, where his brother Cecil Barber was living since 1979. In the mid 1980s Barber became an US citizen.

In 1998 he and Roger Birnbaum foundet Spyglass Entertainment in Los Angeles. His highest grossing film as producer was The Tourist, which grossed close to US$280 million at the worldwide box office.

So, it looks to me as if he worked his way up through Price Waterhouse, then went over to Vestron and Morgan Creek where he likely made quite a few film connections. At this point he's got the contacts and is pulling a COO's salary/bonus, so he takes a chance on co-founding Spyglass Entertainment.