Richard Branson is a lot of things to a lot of people. To us, he's the fearless founder of Virgin (one of the world's greatest brands) and chairman of the Virgin Group. You can find out more about him and read the first chapter of his autobiography at virgin.com.
At 16, Richard set up Student Magazine. By 17, he'd also set up a charity to help thousands of young people cope with university life. It offered free advice on sex. And relationship issues. And sex. The mag is still going strong today. It deals with other issues, but it still talks about sex.
In 1970, age 20, Richard founded Virgin as a mail order record retailer. Soon after that, he opened a record shop in London, England. By 1972 he'd built a recording studio and the first Virgin artist, Mike Oldfield, recorded “Tubular Bells”, a hit that sold over five million copies! Then, artists like The Rolling Stones, Janet Jackson, and Phil Collins (to name a few) helped make Virgin Records one of the top six record companies in the world. Richard sold Virgin Records to the EMI Group in 1992 to concentrate on setting up new businesses. Whew.
Oh, yeah, Richard's a bit of an adventurer, and he's been breaking world records since 1985. For instance:
Richard Branson was awarded a knighthood in December 1999 for “services to entrepreneurship”. Well done, Sir!
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