Sir Richard Branson: a winning smile
Branson was an entrepreneur from a very early age. Certainly at school he was making money out of commercial ventures when most people were studying for their exams, publishing a magazine called Student.
He comes from a family of lawyers – his father a barrister and his grandfather a judge. But because of his dyslexia he performed badly at school and left at sixteen.
Making up for his lack of academic qualifications, he found he had a real ability to connect with people. He went on to found the Virgin Group of more than 400 companies and become the 4th richest person in the UK.
His move through record label (where he signed Mike Oldfield whose Tubular Bells was Virgin’s first single and went to number one) to record stores was rapid and successful. But the bravest move was to set up an airline and take on the might of British Airways. When this blew up into a court case between them, British Airways was forced to settle with payments of £500,000 to Branson and a further £110,000 to the airline plus £3 million in legal costs. Branson distributed his windfall to the staff as a bonus.
He has become involved in most sectors, including banking, fuel, environmental climate change, health, sport and space travel.
Branson is also known for various daring escapades and record-breaking attempts by boat, hot air balloon and amphibious vehicle. In fact he is one of the only entrepreneurs to use his own personality and presence to build a brand around – using it to attract business partners to new ventures and help him build a very successful group of companies.