Sir Richard Branson

Sir Richard Branson

Founder of the Virgin group. Famous, successful entrepreneur.

In 1970 Sir Richard Branson founded Virgin as a mail order record retailer, and eventually he opened a record shop in Oxford Street, London. Now the Virgin group is worth many billions. His topics are innovation, branding, customer service and leadership

Like most stories of heroic capital conquest, Richard Branson’s rise to billion-dollar heights of entrepreneurial excellence has its own humble roots. From struggling to make ends meet as a journalist and an editor of a late-60’s school newspaper, to starting a mail-order record business that grew into a small second-story record shop on London’s Oxford Street, which in turn became an independent record label, by the time Richard Branson arrived in New York City this spring for the opening of his Times Square Virgin Megastore, the empire he has built over the last two-and-a-half decades as simply all things Virgin has amounted to one of the most compelling and awesome personal fortunes in recent history.

Branson continues to diversify Virgin with a life-insurance company, a retirement trust, Virgin Vodka and Virgin Cola. While Virgin Cola has yet to be launched in the States, it has already surpassed Pepsi for the number-two place in England.

A recent independent research study has shown that the UK public vote Virgin as their most admired brand. A sample of 2,000 adults were asked ‘which brands or companies can you think of that you really admire?" - Virgin received more votes than any other brand with 23% of votes.
The results come from a nationally representative survey of 2,000 adults conducted in February – April 2007 by top research company HPI Research|.

Virgin, a leading branded venture capital organisation, is one of the world´s most recognised and respected brands. Conceived in 1970 by Sir Richard Branson, the Virgin Group has gone on to grow very succesful businesses in sectors ranging from mobile telephony, to transportation, travel, financial services, leisure, music, holidays, publishing and retailing.
Virgin has created more than 200 branded companies worldwide, employing approximately 50,000 people, in 29 countries. Revenues around the world in 2006 exceeded £10 billion (approx. US$20 billion).

Richard Branson has been involved in a number of world record-breaking attempts since 1985. 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 of the same ocean in "Virgin Atlantic Flyer". This was not only the first hot-air balloon to cross the Atlantic, but was the largest ever flown at 2.3 million cubic feet capacity, reaching speeds in excess of 130 miles per hour (209 km/h).
Still after the ultimate adventure, in January 1991 Richard crossed the Pacific Ocean from Japan to Arctic Canada, the furthest distance of 6,700 miles. Again, he broke all existing records, with speeds of up to 245 miles -per hour in a balloon of 2.6 million cubic feet.