The Early Life Of Richard Branson And His Failures And Success

By Gabriella Cornelius and Emilie Evans

Do Any Of You Recognise Richard Branson?

Who Is Richard Branson?

Sir Richard Branson is a famous british entrepreneur/billionaire, who is best known as the founder of Virgin Group, which holds over 400 companies.

Early Life 

Childhood

Main ideas:

- Born in Surrey, 1950

- Father was a barrister; Mother was a flight attendant

- Scaitcliffe School and Stowe Boarding-School

- Struggled due to dyslexia; dropped out

Career

Career

Main ideas:

- Youth culture magazine called Student (run by students, made £8000 worth of ads in 1st edition)

- 1969; began a record company called Virgin

- Expanded business, got a record shop in London

- 1972; built a recording studio

Virgin Records

Virgin Records

Main Ideas:

- First artist's label by Mike Oldfield - "Tubular Bells" in 1973

- Very popular, UK charts for 247 weeks

- Virgin Music 1 of the top 6 record companies in the world.

Business Expansions

Main Ideas:

- Included a travel company, the Voyager Group (1980)

- Airline, Virgin Atlantic (1984)

- Some Virgin Megastores

 A Few Pictures:

The End?

Main Ideas:

- In 1992, Virgin, to stay financially afloat.

- Company sold to 'THORN EMI' for $1 billion

- Richrd Branson was very sad, determined to stay in music business

Expansion Again

Main Ideas:

- In 1993, founded the station Virgin Radio

- Several years later, started a second record company, V2. Founded in 1996, V2 now includes artists such as Powder Finger and Tom Jones.

Virgin Radio

Today

Main ideas:

- Upgraded his planes

- Club house in Heathrow Airport

Virgin Today

Main Ideas:

- Virgin Group now holds more than 200 companies in more than 30 countries, including the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Canada, Asia, Europe and South Africa

- Expanded his businesses to include a train company, a luxury game preserve, a mobile phone company and a space-tourism company, Virgin Galactic.

Pictures:

Virgin Galactic Today

Main Ideas:

- Recently, Branson's attention on his space tourism venture. He partnered with Scaled Composites to form The Spaceship Company, which is currently developing a suborbital spaceplane

- In April 2013, the project got closer to the test launch of SpaceShipTwo.

Achievements

Main Ideas:

- He is known for his sporting achievements, especially the record-breaking Atlantic crossing in Virgin Atlantic Challenger II in 1986, and the first crossing by hot-air balloon of the Atlantic (1987) and Pacific (1991).

- He was knighted in 1999 for his contribution to entrepreneurship, and in 2009, he landed at No. 261 on Forbes' "World Billionaires" list with his $2.5 billion in self-made fortune, which includes two private islands

- Now $5 billion...

Failures

Main Ideas:

- Not many

- Virgin Galactic accident in 2007, issues in engine, killed 3 people and injured 3 workers.

Personal Life

Main Ideas:

- Branson married to second wife, Joan Templeman

- Has two children: Holly and Sam

- He currently lives in London, England.

Sources

Here are some of our sources, others are on our Big 6 papers...

- http://www.biography.com/people/richard-branson-9224520

- https://www.virgin.com/author/richard-branson

- http://www.forbes.com/profile/richard-branson/