Sir
Richard
Branson

Having started Virgin as a mail order record retailer in 1970, Richard Branson founded Virgin Records. After the first Virgin artist, Mike Oldfield, released ‘Tubular Bells’, Virgin Records went on to sign household names from the Sex Pistols to The Rolling Stones.

 

There are now more than 40 Virgin companies worldwide, employing approximately 71,000 people in over 35 countries in sectors as diverse as travel, communications, health, banking and leisure.

 

Richard has challenged himself with many record- breaking adventures, including the fastest ever Atlantic Ocean crossing, a series of oceanic balloon journeys and kitesurfing across the Channel. He has described Virgin Galactic, the world’s first commercial space line, as being “the greatest adventure of all”.

 

Since the 1970s, Branson has been the champion of the “better alternative”, and has become a prolific ambassador for what he calls “business as a force for good”.

 

With this new approach to entrepreneurship rapidly shaping business in the 21st century, we’re on our way to business success being judged not by just profit, but through cultural impact. Subsequently, business is becoming more responsible, more transparent, more rewarding, more interesting and - ultimately - more fun.