Richard Branson was born in 1950, and educated at Stowe School, where he established a national magazine called Student at the age of sixteen. He started a Student Advisory Centre aged 17 to help young people. In 1970 he founded Virgin as a mail order record retailer and shortly thereafter opened a record shop in Oxford Street, London. During 1972 a recording studio was built in Oxfordshire where the first Virgin artist, Mike Oldfield, recorded "Tubular Bells" which was released in 1973.

The first album of the newly created Virgin Records went on to sell over 5 million copies. The equity of Virgin Music Group - record labels, music publishing, and recording studios was sold to THORN EMI in 1992 in a US$1Bn deal.

Today, Virgin is one of the world's most recognized and respected brands. Virgin Group has expanded into international retail, air travel, mobile, financial, retail, music, rail, resorts and leisure, space travel, and clean fuels through more than 200 companies’ worldwide, employing approximately 50,000 people in 29 countries. Revenues around the world in 2006 exceeded £5 billion (US$10 billion).