Branson still wants to change the world
Billionaire tycoon donates cash to youth charities on his swing through Vancouver
In a Vancouver hotel room, Richard Branson sits in profile watching CNN, a cellphone glued to his ear. Bright sunlight glitters through the plate glass window of his suite at the Fairmont Pacific Rim and as he turns, flashing a radiant smile, it is as if the sun god himself is sitting there, awash in gold.
A table is set with lunch: sumptuous crab salad sandwiches six inches deep, trays laden with perfectly carved exotic fruit, a dark wooden box of tea.
Branson’s team includes corporate communications manager Sarah Mcintyre, Chris Rossi, Virgin Atlantic’s senior vice- president for North America, and a handful of other impeccably groomed male corporate associates in crisp, opennecked shirts.
Branson has already snipped the necktie of one television reporter today, I am told: it’s one of his signature pranks. He doesn’t like suits and ties; the necktie will choke the life out of free thought and strangle outofthe box thinking. Cut it off!
He offers me a pinky finger instead of his hand. “Bit of a cold,” he says. “Don’t want to pass it on to you.”
As we settle at the table, Branson, who has been on a back- toback Vancouver media blitz to promote the launch of Virgin Atlantic Airlines’ new non- stop service between Vancouver and London, helps himself to a puffy sandwich and takes a delicate bite while an assistant offers him a selection from the tea box.
We have about 20 minutes. It’s an awkwardly artificial environment for free thought, with or without neckties, but when my digital audio recorder begins to blink, and I fumble, beeping through a set of prompts to reset,
Every single person can make a difference to one other person in their lifetime. Tiny amounts of money can absolutely transform one person’s life.
RICHARD BRANSON ENTREPRENEUR, PHILANTHROPIST
he immediately flashes back to his days as a journalist. Always have two recorders, he advises.
It’s a thoughtful, almost fatherly moment, and without a trace of impatience, he lowers his sandwich and waits.
Journalism, he explains, was where the lines of inspiration and action first intersected in his life. At the age of 16 he began his first “rebel” venture: The Student magazine. “There were a lot of things I disagreed with in school,” Branson says. He didn’t see the point in studying French and Latin, in the formal structure of lessons, of wearing a tie. He also struggled with dyslexia. “People had never heard the word dyslexia. They just thought you were stupid.” Like many kids with dyslexia, Branson explains, he developed “exceeding interests” in things other than the “gobbledygook” he saw on the blackboards in the boxlike school rooms he was trapped within.
Branson’s peculiar interest then isn’t that different than his higher purpose now: change the world.
“Vietnam was starting ... we were very, very antiwar.” The Student was a forum in which he could express those sentiments; through interviews he connected with thought leaders and change makers like James Baldwin, Jean- Paul Sartre and Vanessa Redgrave. He also learned to work the “phonebox,” selling ads and keeping what turned out to be a very viable business afloat.
He soon decided to drop out of school and make the magazine a full- time venture. “I had to walk around the garden not one but six or seven times with my father over that,” he says, nearly filling the room with his grin.
“Give it a go, if it doesn’t work out, we’ll do our best to give you an education,” his father, a barrister, told him.
“The magazine became my education,” Branson says.
It was live and learn. Branson’s mother bailed him out financially when, at the age of 19, his startup record sales company called “Virgin” — selling records out of the “boot” of his car — got him in trouble with the taxman.
He spent a night in jail and she mortgaged her home to pay the fines and back taxes.
He credits his parents and family friends as early mentors in the logistics of keeping the numbers straight. Charisma, a lot of hard work and more than a little help from his friends helped him build the Virgin empire.
The great satisfaction he gets now — when he’s not swimming around Necker Island, his private tropical retreat in the British Virgin Islands, or kiteboarding across the English Channel with his kids, or launching another new business, like Virgin Galactic, to take wealthy celebrities on sub- orbital space flights — is in philanthropy. His goal: save the world.
While in Vancouver Friday to promote the new Virgin Atlantic flights, Branson appeared with Glee’s Corey Monteith and announced that Virgin Mobile and Virgin Unite will donate more than $ 50,000 to the Broadway Youth Resource Centre, which provides services to homeless and at- risk youth, and Project Limelight Society, a youth- theatre charity.
“I’m a lad of the ’ 60s,” he says, simply, his crab sandwich sitting half- eaten on his plate, his gaze fixed earnestly on me. “I started a magazine to try and end the Vietnamese war, but it was a number of years before I had the profile, the financial resources and the time to do more.”
Branson says he is honoured to work with The Elders, a philanthropic group founded by Nelson Mandela with a mandate to change the world for the good. “These are inspirational people I’ve got to know really, really well, unbelievable people who are using their high moral authority to solve world crises,” says Branson.
Although $ 50,000 may be a drop in the bucket to Branson, it will surely go a long way to two organizations working for change in Vancouver, and Branson believes it is by individual drops a sea change will come.
“Every single person can make a difference to one other person in their lifetime. Tiny amounts of money can absolutely transform one person’s life.”
He gazes out over the table of untouched food, past the bare neck of his Virgin Atlantic vicepresident, to the mountaintops that gleam over the water. “In Canada there are a lot of people out on the streets ... it’s important to do something, meet these kids and help them get back on their feet.”
He seems to have forgotten his lunch, for the moment. He brightens when the subject turns to his history of adventure and reputation for daring, something that has added a dash of allure to the Branson brand. He assures me although his mother may have been the first to rescue him in business, there were other rescues to follow — most dramatically when he was plucked from the North Atlantic by an RAF helicopter after his boat capsized. “I’ve experienced fear,” he says, “but I’ve never shat my pants.” He flashes his famous grin. As proof, the RAF crew that rescued him took a picture of the unstained underwear they stripped from his body. He framed the picture. “Just like in business, you have to do everything you can to survive.”
When Sarah signals it is time for one last question, I ask what he hopes his legacy will be. “Somebody up there has been very kind to me.” He shakes his head, almost in disbelief as he pauses to reflect.
“I hope I’ve made a bit of difference to other people’s lives and haven’t wasted a minute.”
Then he rises, ready for the photographer.