Sir Richard Branson

Sir Richard Branson founded Virgin, one of the world’s most admired brands, in 1970. Since then, it has expanded into many diverse sectors from travel to telecommunications, health to banking, and music to leisure. There are now more than 40 Virgin companies worldwide in over 35 countries.

Richard launched the youth culture magazine Student aged 16 and started Virgin as a mail order record retailer in 1970. Richard then founded Virgin Records and opened a record shop on Oxford Street, London. After building a recording studio, The Manor, the first Virgin artist, Mike Oldfield, recorded and released ‘Tubular Bells’. It was a runaway success. Virgin Records went on to sign household names from The Sex Pistols to The Rolling Stones, becoming the biggest independent label in the world.

Since Richard founded Virgin Atlantic in 1984, it has established itself as a leading global airline. Virgin Australia, Virgin America, Virgin Holidays, Virgin Limited Edition, Virgin Trains, Virgin Hotels, Virgin Voyages, and Virgin Galactic followed in travel, while expansion elsewhere saw Richard become the only person to build twelve billion dollar companies in eight different sectors.

Richard has also challenged himself with many record breaking adventures, including the fastest ever Atlantic Ocean crossing, a series of hot air balloon adventures, and kitesurfing across the English Channel. In 2021, he undertook his greatest adventure of all and flew to space with Virgin Galactic.

Richard maintains a daily blog on www.virgin.com discussing everything from entrepreneurship, conservation and sustainability, to travel, music, and his life lessons. He has more than 41 million followers across his social networks. Richard is a prolific author, having written eight books, including Losing My Virginity and his most recent autobiography, Finding My Virginity.

Since starting Student magazine in his teens, Richard has found entrepreneurial ways to provoke positive change in the world for more than 50 years. At Student magazine, they saw that many young people urgently needed a place to go for confidential advice, and so Richard started a Student Advisory Centre aged 17 to help young people overcome issues ranging from abortion to sexuality. As the HIV epidemic began to take hold, Richard launched the not-for-profit Mates condoms, to fundraise and raise awareness; the brand also famously helped fight stigma with its increasingly tongue-in-cheek TV ads.

In 2004, Richard established the non-profit entrepreneurial foundation Virgin Unite to help tackle tough social and environmental problems. The founding principle of Virgin Unite is to make business a force for good. Richard spends a lot of time working with Virgin Unite and the organisations it has incubated, such as The Elders, Carbon War Room (now merged with RMI), B Team, and Ocean Unite. Richard also serves on the Global Commission on Drug Policy and supports ocean conservation with the Ocean Elders.

Richard was awarded a knighthood in 1999 for services to entrepreneurship. He lives in the British Virgin Islands with his wife Joan and has two children, Holly and Sam. He is a proud grand-dude to five grandchildren –Etta, Artie, Lola, Eva-Deia, and Bluey.