Richard Branson

Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is an English business magnate who co-founded the Virgin Group in 1970, and, as of 2016, controlled five companies.

Branson expressed his desire to become an entrepreneur at a young age. His first business venture, at the age of 16, was a magazine called Student. In 1970, he set up a mail-order record business. He opened a chain of record stores, Virgin Records—later known as Virgin Megastores—in 1972. His Virgin brand grew rapidly during the 1980s, as he started the 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 the privatisation of British Rail. The Virgin Trains brand 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 the space tourism company Virgin Galactic, based at Mojave Air and Space Port in California, United States, noted for the SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplane.

In March 2000, Branson was knighted for "services to entrepreneurship". Due to his work in retail, music and transport, his taste for adventure and for his humanitarian work, he has become a prominent global figure. In 2007 he was named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World by Time magazine. In June 2023, Forbes magazine listed Branson's estimated net worth at US$3 billion.