Richard Branson to speak with Desautels students

In 1970 Richard Branson founded Virgin as a mail order record retailer, and shortly afterwards opened a record shop in Oxford Street, London. In 1972 he built a recording studio where the first Virgin artist, Mike Oldfield, recorded 'Tubular Bells'.

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.  Richard is also very proud of the work of Virgin Unite, a not-for-profit entrepreneurial foundation, which continues to focus on entrepreneurial approaches to social and environmental issues. He was knighted in 1999 for his "services to entrepreneurship".

Sir Richard Branson will speak as part of the Peter Brojde Leadership Lecture on February 16th, 2010