Richard Branson

Branson's great-great-great-grandfather, John Edward Branson, left England for India in 1793; John Edward's father, Harry Wilkins Branson, later joined his son in Madras.

Starting from 1793, four generations of Branson's family lived in India, mostly at Cuddalore, in modern-day Tamil Nadu.

On the show Finding Your Roots, Branson was shown to have 3.9% South Asian (Indian) DNA, likely through intermarriage.

Later, he stated that one of his great-great-great-grandmothers was an Indian named Ariya.

Branson was educated at Scaitcliffe School, a prep school in Surrey, before briefly attending Cliff View House School in Sussex.

He attended Stowe School, a private school in Buckinghamshire until the age of sixteen.

Branson has dyslexia, and had poor academic performance; on his last day at school, his headmaster, Robert Drayson, told him he would either end up in prison or become a millionaire.

Branson has also talked openly about having ADHD.

Branson's parents were supportive of his endeavours from an early age.

His mother was an entrepreneur; one of her most successful ventures was building and selling wooden tissue boxes and wastepaper bins.

Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is a British business magnate.

Richard Charles Nicholas Branson was born on 18 July 1950 in Blackheath, London, the son of Edward James Branson (1918–2011), a barrister, and his wife Evette Huntley Branson (1924–2021), a former ballet dancer and air hostess.

He has two younger sisters, Lindy and Vanessa.

His grandfather, Sir George Arthur Harwin Branson, was a judge of the High Court of Justice and a Privy Councillor.

He interviewed several prominent personalities of the late 1960s for the magazine including Mick Jagger and R. D. Laing.

After failed attempts to grow and sell both Christmas trees and budgerigars, Branson launched a magazine named Student in 1966 with Nik Powell.

In London, he started off squatting from 1967 to 1968.

Branson is an atheist.

The first issue of Student appeared in January 1968, and a year later, Branson's net worth was estimated at £50,000.

The office for the venture was situated in the crypt of St. John's Church, off Bayswater Road, in London.

Though not initially as successful as he hoped, the magazine later became a vital component of the mail-order record business Branson started from the same church he used for Student.

Branson used the magazine to advertise popular albums, driving his record sales.

In the 1970s, he co-founded the Virgin Group, which today controls more than 400 companies in various fields.

Branson expressed his desire to become an entrepreneur at a young age.

His first business venture, at the age of 16, was a magazine called Student.

In 1970, he set up a mail-order record business.

He opened a chain of record stores, Virgin Records—later known as Virgin Megastores—in 1972.

Branson's Virgin brand grew rapidly during the 1980s, as he started the Virgin Atlantic airline and expanded the Virgin Records music label.

In 1997, Branson founded the Virgin Rail Group to bid for passenger rail franchises during the privatisation of British Rail.

The Virgin Trains brand operated the InterCity West Coast franchise from 1997 to 2019, the InterCity CrossCountry franchise from 1997 to 2007, and the InterCity East Coast franchise from 2015 to 2018.

In March 2000, Branson was knighted at Buckingham Palace for "services to entrepreneurship".

Due to his work in retail, music, and transport, his taste for adventure, and for his humanitarian work, he has become a prominent global figure.

In 2004, he founded spaceflight corporation Virgin Galactic, based at Mojave Air and Space Port in California, noted for the SpaceShipTwo suborbital spaceplane designed for space tourism.

In 2007, he was placed in the Time 100 Most Influential People in the World list.

In June 2023, Forbes listed Branson's estimated net worth at US$3 billion.

On 11 July 2021, Branson travelled as a passenger onboard Virgin Galactic Unity 22 at the edge of space, a suborbital test flight for his spaceflight company Virgin Galactic.

The mission lasted approximately one hour, reaching a peak altitude of 53.5 mi. At 70, Branson became the third oldest person to fly to space.

He said in a 2011 interview with CNN's Piers Morgan that he believes in evolution and the importance of humanitarian efforts but not in the existence of God.

"I would love to believe," he said.

"It's very comforting to believe".