Archive for January, 2009
What’s it like to be a young entrepreneur in South Africa?
Virgin Unite is heading to South Africa to visit several young entrepreneurs whose businesses have been supported by the Branson School of Entrepreneurship. We’re taking along our video camera, so why not post a question for them to this blog? We’ll film the responses and share them upon our return.
The School, based in Johannesburg, provides [...]
Olly Hicks sets out on the Virgin Global Row
Olly Hicks has set out on a perilous journey that could see him achieve a feat that no man has achieved before – to single-handedly row 18,000 miles around the globe in a boat.
Human nature’s thirst for adventure, to set and break records, to push boundaries of human endurance to its very limits has meant [...]
Virgin Atlantic - from the archives
Continuing their 25th birthday celebrations, Virgin Atlantic have dug out these clips from the archives. Featuring footage from various inaugurals through the years, this video shows Richard doing what he does best!
Virgin Atlantic: 25 years and still red hot
Who’d have thought 25 years ago that Virgin Atlantic would be the leading airline player it is today?
The inaugural flight, VS1 from Gatwick to Newark, New Jersey on 22nd June 1984, was a miracle in itself having been planned in just a few weeks.
Now, we use 38 aircraft to fly six million people a year [...]
Meet Heaven’s Angels rider - Helen Adipo
Following on recent posts about how innovation is a key factor in Virgin’s success, this principle is also fundamental to the work of Virgin’s not-for-profit foundation, Virgin Unite. We aim to harness the entrepreneurial energy that has made Virgin so successful in the commercial realm and apply it to solving social and environmental problems.
One example [...]
Virgin’s greatest challenge
Since I’ve been working with Richard at Virgin our biggest challenge has been entering into the rail industry and bidding for the franchise. At the time this was very new. The government was privatising the railways and it was a very difficult and highly competitive process.
At that time the rail industry had a poor reputation. [...]
The (sometimes) painful birth of innovation
In this piece Mark Mangan, CEO of Flavorpill, follows on from Richard’s and his Virgin colleagues’ posts on Business Stripped Bare, and shares his experience in branding and innovation.
A few months back, as Wall Street began to implode, online advertising was getting hit along with everyone else, and soon our company was in near crisis [...]
Virgin’s recipe for business success
I’m Jayne-Anne Gadhia, Executive Chairman of the Virgin Money group of companies, and would like to jump in here following Richard’s last post on what Virgin does.
There are many ingredients that go into Virgin’s recipe for business success. In fact Richard’s new book, Business Stripped Bare, discusses some of these key factors - people, brand, [...]
What Virgin does…
I’m not good at theory. Almost everything I’ve learned, I’ve learned by doing. However, Muhammad’s opinions excite me. They confirm a lot of the gut feelings I’ve developed about business over the years. And topping my list of gut feelings is this: business has to give people enriching, rewarding lives, or it’s simply not worth [...]
