Sir Richard Branson was born in 1950 and educated at Stowe School, where he set up Student magazine when he was 16.
In 1970 he founded Virgin as a mail order record retailer, and shortly afterwards he opened a record shop in Oxford Street, London. In 1972 he built a recording studio in Oxfordshire where the first Virgin artist, Mike Oldfield, recorded 'Tubular Bells'.
In 1977 Virgin Music signed the Sex Pistols and went on to sign many household names from Culture Club to the Rolling Stones, helping to make Virgin Music one of the top six record companies in the world. He was forced to sell Virgin Music to EMI in 1992 to keep his airline Virgin Air afloat. He later created V2 Records to make a fresh start in the music business.
With around 200 companies in over 30 countries, the Virgin Group has now expanded into leisure, travel, tourism, mobile, broadband, TV, radio, music festivals, finance and health and through Virgin Green Fund they are investing in renewable energy and resource efficiency.
In February 2007, Virgin announced the Virgin Earth Challenge — a $25 million prize to encourage a viable technology which will result in the net removal of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases. In July of the same year he had the honour of joining his good friend Peter Gabriel, Nelson Mandela, Graça Machel, and Desmond Tutu to announce the formation of The Elders, a group of leaders to contribute their wisdom, independent leadership and integrity to tackle some of the world's toughest problems.
He is married since 1989 to Joan Templeton, with which he has two daughters.
In 1993, Branson was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Technology from Loughborough University.