Sir Richard Branson

Richard Branson is for many the epitome of the buccaneering British entrepreneur, with his adventures at sea, in the air and now in space as audacious as his ever-changing business conglomerate. He didn’t bother with school six form, instead leaving to find a student magazine and start his Virgin record label in 1971. The formation of Virgin Atlantic in 1984 put Branson in competition with airlines around the world, and the Virgin Atlantic Challenger helped to gain huge media attention. In 1987, however, Richard and Per Lindstrand did it the slow way – becoming first to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a hot-air balloon. The world was not enough, though, and in 2004 Richard announced Virgin Galactic as a provider of commercial space flights; in June 2023 the company’s first paying customers experienced the edge of space 50 miles above Earth’s surface.