Richard Branson

Sir Richard Branson is the English magnate who built the Virgin Group from a mail-order record business and the Virgin Records label into a sprawling conglomerate spanning airlines, mobile networks, and spaceflight. A famed adventurer and self-made billionaire, he has chased hot-air-balloon records and launched Virgin Galactic’s suborbital flights. His books turn that restless, risk-loving career into candid advice on entrepreneurship and leadership, most famously the memoir Losing My Virginity, written in the same informal, contrarian voice that built the brand.