Sir Richard Branson

Richard Branson was born in 1950, and educated at Stowe School, where he established a national magazine called Student at the age of sixteen. He started a student advisory service centre aged 17 to help young people. In 1970 he founded Virgin as a mail order record company and shortly after opened a record shop in Oxford Street, London. During 1972, a recording studio was built in Oxfordshire where the first Virgin artist, Mike Oldfield, recorded “Tubular Bells” which was released in 1973.

 

The first album of the newly created Virgin Records went on to sell over 5 million copies. Over the years many household names, including Genesis, Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, Simple Minds, The Human League, Culture Club, Janet Jackson and The Rolling Stones helped make Virgin one of the top six record companies in the world. The equity of Virgin Music Group – record labels, music publishing and recording studios – was subsequently sold to the Thorn EMI in 1992 in a US$ 1 billion deal.

 

The interests of Virgin Group had now expanded into international “Megastore” music retailing, book and software publishing film and video editing facilities, clubs, travel, hotels and cinemas through over 200 companies in 29 countries.

 

Virgin Atlantic Airways, formed in 1984, has become the second largest British airline and operates a fleet of Boeing 747 and Airbus A340 aircraft to a network of 28 destinations worldwide. The airline was founded on the concept of offering a competitive and high quality Upper Class and Economy service. The airline is now the holder of every major travel award.

 

Since 1985, Richard has also been involved in a number of world record-breaking attempts. In 1986, his boat ‘Virgin Atlantic Challenger II’, rekindled the spirit of the Blue Riband by crossing the Atlantic Ocean in the fastest ever recorded time. This was followed a year later by the epic hot air balloon crossing in 'Virgin Atlantic Flyer’ which was not only the first to cross the Atlantic but was the largest ever flown. In January 1991, he crossed the Pacific Ocean from Japan to Arctic Canada, again breaking all existing records with speeds of up to 245 miles per hour. Between 1995 and 1998 Richard Branson and Per Lindstrand and Steve Fossett made a number of attempts to circumnavigate the globe by balloon. In late 1998 they made a record breaking flight from Morocco to Hawaii but their dream was shattered by bad weather before a Swiss team successfully circumnavigated the globe early in 1999.

 

In 1996 Virgin Group launched Virgin Express, a short-haul airline based in Belgium offering a low cost, no frills service and flying within Europe. Virgin Rail operates two rail franchises and is engaged in a $3.2 billion fleet replacement programme to create one of the most modern rail networks in the world with high speed tilting trains already in operation. In 1999 Virgin entered into the telecommunications business launching Virgin Mobile and in 2000 low cost airline Virgin Blue was launched in Australia, both of these companies have subsequently floated. The Virgin Group today comprises over 200 independent companies, with combined annual sales of some $8 billion and total employees of around 35,000. The Virgin Group has now expanded into leisure, travel, tourism, mobile, broadband, TV, radio, music festivals, finance and health and through Virgin Green Fund we are investing in renewable energy and resource efficiency.

 

Richard Branson recently announced that the Virgin Group has entered into an agreement to licence the technology to develop the world’s first privately funded spaceships dedicated the carrying commercial passengers on space flights. Virgin has formed Virgin Galactic, a new company, which will become the world’s first commercial space tourism operator.

 

In the 1999 New Years Honours list Richard Branson received a knighthood for his ‘services to entrepreneurship’.

 

Richard is married to Joan with two grown children, Holly and Sam.

 

In February 2007, Richard announced the Virgin Earth Challenge - a $25 million prize to encourage a viable technology which will result in the net removal of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases. In July of the same year I had the honour of joining my good friend Peter Gabriel, Nelson Mandela, Graça Machel, and Desmond Tutu to announce the formation of The Elders, a group of leaders to contribute their wisdom, independent leadership and integrity to tackle some of the world’s toughest problems.

He is also very proud of the work of Virgin Unite, our not-for-profit entrepreneurial foundation, which continues to focus on entrepreneurial approaches to social and environmental issues and enjoy supporting their work in every way possible.