Richard Branson – a British entrepreneur and business visionary visited the University of Warsaw

Richard Branson – the founder of Virgin Group, an individual of unique ideas, a globally recognized humanitarian, one of the richest British citizens, visited Poland for the first time. The most important event in the itinerary of his visit was a meeting with students.

Richard Branson visited the University to encounter young people and tell them about his path to success. As a student he set up his own business, which turned out to be extremely successful. Encouraged by this, he faced new challenges and thanks to his creative and innovative approach towards business, his further accomplishments were even more spectacular. He keeps saying that "any risk is worth facing provided that we face it for important reasons, in order to make life better"

During the meeting the British billionaire inaugurated a scheme supporting entrepreneurship among young people – "Virgin Mobile Academy"."We are very glad that Richard Branson took part in the inauguration ceremony of this unique scheme supporting entrepreneurship, which we have prepared for young Poles, in particular, for students" – says Tomasz Gniewek, the Managing Director of Virgin Mobile Poland – "I believe that the personality of Richard Branson and his career path as well as innovative business ideas, which he has been implementing since his student times, may serve as intellectual and professional inspiration for many Polish students. In the past Richard Branson was going beyond business standards; today Virgin Mobile Poland wish to encourage ambitious young people to perform innovative activities and search for new solutions" – he adds.

Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson is a British entrepreneur, the founder of Virgin Group consisting of over 400 companies. According to the Forbes list of billionaires, he is the fourth richest citizen of the United Kingdom with estimated worth of $4.2 billion. In 1998 Richard Branson published his autobiography entitled "Losing my virginity", which turned to be a world bestseller. Earlier this year his latest book "Like a Virgin" was published in Great Britain.

Richard Branson started his record business by running "The Student" magazine. It promoted popular recordings and made an immediate success, after Branson managed to interview Mick Jagger or John Lennon.

However, the most serious and important decision was made by Richard Branson at the age of 20, when he and his friends opened the first record shop. The young entrepreneurs were initially offering mail-order selling, which allowed them to establish the record prices at much lower level than in traditional stores. They named their shop Virgin – following one of the employees’ idea, which referred to Branson’s and his friends' lack of experience in business. Today almost every company supervised by Branson contains the word "Virgin" in their names. The first store was tremendously successful and soon another record shop was started in Oxford Street, London.

In 1972 Branson invested the profit made in recording company Virgin Records, established jointly with Rick Powell. They also purchased a country estate, which was later turned into a recording studio. They leased out studio time to fledgling artists, including Mike Oldfield, whose debut album Tubular Bells (1973) was Virgin Records’ first release and its great success. The volume sold amounted to 5 m records, which brought the profit of over one million pounds. In 1977 Virgin gained more fame after signing a contract with Sex Pistols group, which other record companies were reluctant to do. It made another great success – they sold over 5 m records. With time Branson’s recording company gained recognition in the community, during their activity they signed contracts, among others, with The Rolling Stones, Bryan Ferry, Simple Minds, Paula Abdul, Janet Jackson, Genesis, Phil Collins and Peter Gabriel.

Another successful enterprise started by Branson is worth mentioning. In 1984 in cooperation with Randolph Fields he established Virgin Atlantic Airways. The airline became profitable within the first year of operation. However, 1992 turned to be a critical moment in its activity. In order to rescue the airline Branson was forced to sell his recording company to EMI for £500 m. This decision was extremely hard for him as the recording business was the original basis of the Virgin empire. In 1996 Branson set up V2 Records thus returning to recording industry.

Yet, the traditional airline was not enough for Branson; in 2004 he founded Virgin Galactic. In the nearest future the company will offer suborbital space flights, suborbital scientific space missions, as well as placing small satellites on the orbits. Virgin Galactic will also offer tourist space flights.

Branson’s unique and innovative business approach was demonstrated in 1999 when Virgin Mobile – the first ever virtual operator in the world was set up. Today Virgin Mobile operates in 9 countries and plans further expansion. Since August 2012 Virgin Mobile has been operating also in Poland.