Richard Branson

In 1970 Richard Branson founded Virgin as a mail-order record retailer and shortly thereafter opened a record shop in Oxford Street, London.

The first album of the newly created Virgin Records went on to sell over 5 million copies and over the years many household names, including, Belinda Carlisle, Genesis, Phil Collins, Janet Jackson, and The Rolling Stones helped make Virgin Music one of the top six record companies in the world. Since 1985, Richard has 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 of the same ocean in “Virgin Atlantic Flyer” which was not only the first hot-air balloon to cross the Atlantic but was the largest ever flown. In December 1999 Richard Branson was awarded a knighthood in the Queen’s Millennium New Years honors list for “services to entrepreneurship”. Call SME today as the Richard Branson booking as a keynote speaker or leadership speaker.