| British billionaire, space entrepreneur and hot air balloon champion Richard Branson is the founder of Virgin Group, a leading global branded venture capital organisation. Established in 1970 as a mail order record retailer, the Virgin Group now spans 29 countries and total revenues for 2006 exceeded £10bn (€14.8bn).  SIMON HOBBS: What makes a great leader, in your view?
RICHARD BRANSON: Someone who’s good with people. If you like people, if you’re good at motivating and looking for the best in people, if you don’t criticise people, then you’ll make a good leader.
SH: How do you raise standards if you’re reluctant to criticise? RB: People know when they’ve done wrong and don’t need to be told. SH: I see you’ve been described as a “transformational leader”, a maverick who likes informality and a bottom-heavy structure with fewer managers. RB: We have a very flat structure. Business schools have examined how Virgin does things, and I suspect that we’re not that radical. I mean, yes, people are allowed to dress as they feel comfortable. It’s much better that people have their own individual style. I don’t understand how the tie ever caught on. SH: The success of the Virgin brand is staggering. How many companies do you have at the moment? RB: Um, we have nearly 400 companies, I think, now. We try to run everything under the principle that small is beautiful. Our record company ended up as 15 different companies in 15 different buildings and so we managed to stay small but overall became quite large. SH: The entrepreneurial zeal you’ve shown right from the beginning is amazing. By 16 you were publishing a magazine and by 20 you had a mail order record company. RB: Look, I was 15, I was dyslexic, the Vietnamese War was taking place. I didn’t like the way we were being taught in school and thought I’d leave school and start a magazine to campaign against the war. SH: So it wasn’t about money? RB: No, I wanted to be an editor but I had to become a publisher in order to make sure that my magazine survived. SH: Was the launch of Virgin Atlantic in 1984 a watershed because it was a very different type of industry with heavy fixed costs? Did the way you dealt with business change at that point? RB: If you learn how to run one business well, you can run any business well. Business is all about people. So, if you’re going to get an airline, make sure that you get, as I did, the chief technical officer from British Caledonian to run it. SH: Didn’t you have to sell Virgin Records in 1992? RB: We had a dramatically bumpy ride, including an engine exploding on the very first flight, which practically bankrupted us. And when British Airways launched their dirty tricks campaign against us we had to chip in Virgin Records to show that we had the muscle to stay around. SH: What is extraordinary is that you remain the face of Virgin and that’s how many people relate to the brand. How do you feel about that? RB: I am the face of Virgin, but we have 60,000 people around the world and 350 managing directors. They are given enormous freedom and freedom to make mistakes. They run the companies as if they are their own companies. SH: You’re not a big fan of stock markets, are you? RB: Twenty-five years ago we floated Virgin Records and doubled our share prices, then the share price halved in the October, 1987 crash. I couldn’t see the logic of it, so we went back to private, but we have companies that are public and have done very well, such as Virgin Mobile.
Personally, I will not be a director on the board. It’s not my style. I haven’t attended a board meeting for 20 years. I know what I’m good at and I know what I’m not good at. SH: Is Virgin Galactic still happening? Will I be able to orbit round the earth at the end of 2009? RB: You will. It’s quite exciting actually, because we’re now only seven months away from unveiling the spaceship and bringing it out of its hangar. SH: And I presume you’ve already seen it? Is it already built? RB: Actually, it’s very, um… obviously there will be extensive testing before we fly, but interestingly, because we’re building it in America, though its 100% British-owned, for the first few months I was not allowed to see the plans because of American military security. SH: And against this you’ve got this desire to do something about carbon footprints. Why make that decision? RB: A couple of years ago Al Gore said: “Look, you’re a globally well-known business person and can make a grand statement that will bring the rest of the business community on board.” I thought: “Hang on a minute. We’re in the dirty business; let’s go and invest all that money into clean fuels, and if we can come up with one that works and we can take on the oil companies, then we can create a whole new business that would work anyway.” SH: Finally, what is the one piece of advice you would give to a young person? RB: Have a go, fall flat on your face, pick yourself up and try again. Don’t be afraid of failure. |