|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Other authors named Richard:
|
|
|
|
Author's popularity: 3
Vote:  
|
If you like or dislike this author in general or one or more of their quotes in particular, please give us your feedback by clicking on the icon to vote for, or the icon to vote against them.
|
|
Popularity: 6
Vote: | A business has to be involving, it has to be fun, and it has to exercise your creative instincts. |
Popularity: 1
Vote: | Business opportunities are like buses, there's always another one coming. |
Popularity: 2
Vote: | I believe in benevolent dictatorship provided I am the dictator. |
Popularity: -2
Vote: | I never get the accountants in before I start up a business. It's done on gut feeling, especially if I can see that they are taking the mickey out of the consumer. |
Popularity: 5
Vote: | I wanted to be an editor or a journalist, I wasn't really interested in being an entrepreneur, but I soon found I had to become an entrepreneur in order to keep my magazine going. |
Popularity: 4
Vote: | Like getting into a bleeding competition with a blood bank. |
Popularity: 6
Vote: | Ridiculous yachts and private planes and big limousines won't make people enjoy life more, and it sends out terrible messages to the people who work for them. It would be so much better if that money was spent in Africa - and it's about getting a balance. |
Popularity: 8
Vote: | The music industry is a strange combination of having real and intangible assets: pop bands are brand names in themselves, and at a given stage in their careers their name alone can practically gaurantee hit records. |
Popularity: 4
Vote: | What's the quickest way to become a millionaire? Borrow fivers off everyone you meet. |
|
Biography
|
Sir Richard Branson KBE (born July 18, 1950) a famed British entrepreneur, is best known for his widely successful Virgin brand, a banner that encompasses a variety of business organizations.
Branson first achieved notoriety with Virgin Records, a record label that started out with multi-instrumentalist Mike Oldfield and introduced bands like the Sex Pistols and Culture Club to the world music scene. Known for his wacky exploits used to promote his businesses, Branson is keen on playful antagonisms, exemplified by his "Mine is bigger than yours" decals on the new Airbus A340-600 jets used by his airline. He has also made several unsuccessful attempts to fly in a hot air balloon around the world.
The hot air balloon, called the "Virgin Atlantic Flyer," was the first hot air balloon ever to cross the Atlantic Ocean, and was the largest ever flown at 60.513 m³ (2,137,000 ft³ - 2.3 million cubic feet) volume, reaching speeds in excess of 130 mph (209 km/h).
In 1991, Branson crossed the Pacific Ocean from Japan to Arctic Canada, a distance of 7,672 km (4,767 miles), but their track took them a claimed 10,885 km. This again broke all existing records with speeds of up to 245 mph in a balloon measuring 2.6 million cubic feet.
He formed Virgin Atlantic Airways in 1984, launched Virgin Mobile in 1999, and later failed in a 2000 bid to handle the National Lottery. He has also started a European short-haul airline, Virgin Express.
In July 2003 Branson flew a replica of the first heavier-than-air flying machine, the glider designed by Sir George Cayley, at the original site in Yorkshire
In October 2003, he teamed up with balloonist Steve Fossett as lead sponsor for an attempt to break the record for a non-stop flight around the world. A new aircraft, the GlobalFlyer, was built specially for the attempt by Scaled Composites and on March 3, 2005, at about 01:50 PM CST, Fossett completed the record-breaking flight after 67 hours and 1 minute, with an average speed of nearly 300 mph.
On September 25, 2004 he announced the signing of a deal under which a new space tourism company, Virgin Galactic, will license the technology behind SpaceShipOne to take paying passengers into suborbital space. The group plans to make flights available to the public by late 2007 with tickets priced at $190,000.
Branson has been tagged as a 'transformational leader' by management lexicon, with his maverick strategies and his stress on the Virgin Group as an organization driven on informality and information, one that's bottom heavy rather than strangled by top-level management.
Branson was 7th in the Sunday Times Rich List 2005.
Politics Branson has identifed himself as a libertarian.
He reputedly considered standing as Lord Mayor of London, but decided not to.
...(more on Wikipedia)
|
|
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Richard Branson".
|
|
|