Company Founder Biographies  
Successful Entrepreneurs Company Founder Biographies: Founder bios of some of the most successful people in business today. Company Founder Biographies



Richard Branson Bio, Founder of Virgin

Richard Branson, born July 18, 1950, is an English billionaire best known for his 360 companies all bearing the Virgin name. As a young entrepreneur, he had operated a mail-order record business when he was 20 years old, and opened a brick and mortar record shop the following year, 1971: Virgin Records, since he was a "virgin" to business. The record business did well, and he soon purchased a recording studio in which he leased studio time, resulting in Virgin Records' release of Mike Oldfield's best-selling album Tubular Bells, followed by releases by non-mainstream artists like the controversial punk band the Sex Pistols, the experimental German group Can, and the Culture Club.

But he didn't limit himself to music companies -- in 1984, he founded Virgin Atlantic Airways, while Virgin Mobile (a cellular telephone provider) was launched in 1999. An outspoken, brash entrepreneur, Branson has made a number of choices considered risky or unwise. In 2004, he formed a space tourism company, Virgin Galactic, which is scheduled to make space flights available to the public in late 2009 at $200,000 per person. The Virgin group is currently organizing Virgin Fuels to develop cheaper fuels for cars and aviation, in response to global warming and rising petroleum costs. This initiative is funded in part by profits from Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Trains.

Virgin Records and Virgin Mobile, meanwhile, have been sold off -- with Virgin Records bought by the conservative record label EMI, one of those which had rejected the Sex Pistols before they came to Virgin.

Branson continues to explore new initiatives, and is an avid skydiver and traveller.

Read More Company Founder Biographies -

Select another successful entrepreneur below:

Copyright (c) 2008 FounderBios.com. All Rights Reserved.