Unconventional Management

From the World Business Forum

Richard Branson

Talking Points:

• How to start a business from the ground up, keep diversifying and growing
• Challenging conventional wisdom: what are the advantages and disadvantages of being a unique leader?
• How to make strategic decisions in an ever expanding, eclectic conglomerate of businesses
• The Virgin management style: value, quality, innovation, customer focus, fostering talent, maintaining a sense of competitive challenge and fun in the workplace.

Entrepreneur, overachiever, adventurer and businessman, Richard Branson is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of the Virgin and Voyager Groups of Companies. Branson was 17 when he made his first million. In 1968, he published the first issue of his national magazine, Student, which sold 50,000 copies and launched Branson into the business world.

In 1970, he founded Virgin as a mail order record discount operation which blossomed into a chain of stores and led to the formation of the Virgin Record label in 1973. It soon became one of the top six record companies in the world. In 1992, the equity of Virgin Music Group was sold to Thorn EMI (for a record $980 million) but Branson remains its president for life.

The Virgin Group has since expanded into international music Megastores, and other sectors from mobile to drinks, with around 200 companies in over 30 countries.

In 1999, he was awarded a knighthood in the Queen's Millennium New Year's Honours List for "services to entrepreneurship". His autobiography, Losing My Virginity, was a Wall Street Journal bestseller.

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