Sir Richard Branson: A Man Most Admired By Me

         Sir Richard Branson is one of my most- admired people in the world. He began life in a lower-middle class English family. When one finishes high school in the US and England, the student with the most future potential is voted "Most likely to succeed." Sir Richard was voted "Most likely to go to jail."

         It was not a good start in life for a man who would one day become a billionaire several times over and the richest man in England. Sir Richard started his business career at age 20. He formed The Virgin Group. He seemed and still seems to have "The Midas Touch." (Everything he touches turns to gold.) He started selling records, CD's , etc. He got upset with the service that he got on British Airways. He went out and formed his own airline, Virgin Atlantic Airlines. He went on to form Virgin America Airlines. Elena and I both know from personal experience that it was a class act. We had many wonderful flights. He formed Virgin Australia. Then he did something that many people considered crazy. He formed a company to send passengers into space-Virgin Galactic. In all his decades of running airlines, Sir Richard only had one fatality. This occured when a pilot made an error and caused his first space plane to crash. It set back his space tourism ambitions at least 5 years.

      Sir Richard did not let this tragedy destroy his enthusiasm for space tourism. He built a new space plane. He took the Virgin Galactic company public. (As a matter of disclosure Elena and I are major shareholders in this venture.)

       A couple of days ago, he pulled off a coup. Sir Richard is a showman. He has a brilliant talent for marketing. He gets the public excited. For 10 years, George Whitesides has been CEO of Virgin Galactic. He took the company from 30 employees to 900 employees. Sir Richard saw that the pioneering phase of the company had passed. He moved George Whitesides upstairs. George will now be director of new business development for the whole Virgin Galactic and Virgin Orbital groups. He brought in a major Walt Disney executive, Michael A. Colglazier, to be the new CEO. Michael is a Harvard MBA who ran Disney Asia for many years. He also had a big hand in Star Wars movies. Here is some more information on this move:

https://www.barrons.com/articles/virgin-galactic-stock-ceo-disney-star-wars-galaxys-edge-space-tourism-51594913172?mod=djem_b_Weekly%20Barrons%20feed%20for%20last%2024%20hours 

    Yesterday was a grim day on the stock market with "red ink everywhere." When the public got wind of the new Virgin Galactic CEO, they sensed that the space plane was about to fly with paying passengers. Virgin Galactic shares went up 15% to 20%. It was a great stock market day for Elena and I. The shares are holding well this morning in the premarket trading. They could go up again today.