By Debra Rutherford
Sir Richard Branson, President and Founder of the Virgin Group revolutionizes yet another industry- mobile phones are now added to the family of over 200 companies worldwide called the Virgin Group that does it all. Travel, finance, music, cars, mobile phones, holidays, wines, publishing and more! It’s Sir Richard Branson’s creative way to take the pain out of phone mobility by offering a fresh new approach directed at the youth market and anyone who wants to drop the hidden fees, service charges, contracts with no catch! Virgin offers this so you can enjoy your phone and have some fun without the worry.
On a more personal note this rebel billionaire has had many entrepreneurial breakthroughs starting with the Student Magazine at the age of 16 and at 17 Richard started a charity for university students giving free advice on sexuality and relationships. This is still going strong some 36 years later. In 1970 Virgin was founded in London and in 1972 Richard established his own recording studio where he produced Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells (for those of us who were around back then) selling over 5 million copies! Since then, artists like The Rolling Stones, Janet Jackson, Phil Collins (to name a few) have helped to make Virgin Records one of the top six record companies in the world.
In December 1999, Richard Branson was awarded a knighthood for “services to entrepreneurship” and was Knighted “Sir Richard Branson”.
Richard Branson’s middle name is “adventure”. He has been involved with many record breaking events. His boat “Virgin Atlantic Challenger II” crossed the Atlantic Ocean breaking the world’s fastest- recorded record. In 1986 the “Virgin Atlantic Flyer” Richard’s hot air balloon was the first to cross that same ocean and in 1991 Richard broke all speed records in his hot air balloon reaching speeds of 394 kilometers an hour.
Sir Richard Branson knows how to throw a party. He recently launched his Virgin Mobile at Club Lucid in February with scantily-dressed women, who were eventually painted his new theme colour red. A few years ago he launched Virgin Air on the Toronto Docks, which was a little bit less risqué when Branson and his cronies pulled a Full Monty (well almost-the British flags were extra). You will be seeing lots of him in our great city of Toronto, so keep a look out for this creative Brit.
