Richard Branson

Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson was born on 18 July 1950 in Blackheath, London. His father, Edward James Branson, was a barrister; his mother, Evette Huntley Branson, worked as a ballet dancer and air hostess. He has two younger sisters, Lindy and Vanessa. His paternal grandfather, Sir George Arthur Harwin Branson, served as a High Court judge and Privy Councillor. Four generations of Branson’s family lived in India from 1793 onward, mostly in Cuddalore, and he later learned through a television series that he has 3.9% South Asian (Indian) DNA, likely from a great-great-great-grandmother named Ariya.

Branson attended Scaitcliffe School in Surrey, then briefly Cliff View House School in Sussex, and finally Stowe School in Buckinghamshire until age sixteen. He has dyslexia and ADHD, and his academic performance was poor; on his last day at Stowe, the headmaster told him he would either end up in prison or become a millionaire. His parents supported his early efforts, and his mother ran her own business making wooden tissue boxes and wastepaper bins. From 1967 to 1968, he squatted in London.

At 16, Branson expressed a desire to become an entrepreneur. His first venture, launched in 1966 with Nik Powell, was a magazine called *Student*. The first issue appeared in January 1968, and a year later his net worth was estimated at £50,000. The office was in the crypt of St John’s Church off Bayswater Road. He interviewed figures like Mick Jagger and R. D. Laing for the magazine. After lying to Powell that the staff opposed Powell’s plan to turn the magazine into a co-operative, Branson took full control.

In 1970, he set up a mail-order record business from the same church, using the magazine to advertise albums. He sold records cheaper than high-street chains like WHSmith. He later opened a record shop on Oxford Street. In 1971, he was questioned over selling records declared as export stock; the matter did not go to court after he agreed to repay unpaid purchase tax and a £70,000 fine. His parents remortgaged their home to help cover the settlement.

In 1972, using money from his store, Branson launched the record label Virgin Records with Powell. The name came from an early employee because they were all new to business. He bought a country estate north of Oxford and installed a residential recording studio, The Manor Studio. The label’s first release was Mike Oldfield’s *Tubular Bells* (1973), which became a best-seller. Virgin signed controversial acts like the Sex Pistols, and later artists including the Rolling Stones, Peter Gabriel, XTC, Japan, UB40, Steve Winwood, and Paula Abdul, becoming the world’s largest independent label. It also introduced avant-garde German bands like Faust and Can, and brought Culture Club to music.

During the 1980s, the Virgin brand grew rapidly. Branson started Virgin Atlantic airline and expanded the Virgin Records music label. In 1997, he founded the Virgin Rail Group to bid for passenger rail franchises during British Rail’s privatisation. Virgin Trains operated the InterCity West Coast franchise from 1997 to 2019, the InterCity CrossCountry franchise from 1997 to 2007, and the InterCity East Coast franchise from 2015 to 2018. In 2004, he founded Virgin Galactic, a space tourism company based at Mojave Air and Space Port in California, known for the SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplane.

In March 2000, Branson was knighted for services to entrepreneurship. He has become a prominent global figure through his work in retail, music, and transport, his taste for adventure, and his humanitarian efforts. In 2007, *Time* magazine named him one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. As of June 2023, *Forbes* estimated his net worth at US$3 billion.