Speech by Sir Richard Branson to

The Centre for the Mind

University of Sydney, 10 December, 2003
Thank you Allan for those kind words and thank you all for coming along today.
I appreciate that at this time of year there are probably a number of Christmas events that hold
a great deal more appeal than hearing me talk about my life as an entrepreneur and
businessman.
I would particularly like to thank Professor Snyder, Robyn Williams and Professor Brown for the
invitation today.
I have been lucky enough to receive a number of awards in my lifetime. It is safe to say that as
a 16-year student who needed to borrow 4 off my mother to launch my first business venture
such awards seemed highly unlikely.

But, then again, at 16 it also seemed highly unlikely that I would have the opportunity to rub
shoulders with a band as great as The Rolling Stones or even fly around the world in my own
jumbo or nearly around the world in my own hot air balloon for that matter.
I guess it is somewhat ironic that, as someone who never went to university and who even
struggled at high school, I find myself being presented with this award in the grounds of The
University of Sydney. My business or management education has come from trying and
succeeding and even from trying and failing.
It is also very humbling to read that Nelson Mandela is the Millennium Fellow for the Centre.
Nelson Mandela has achieved so much for the people of South Africa and is such a wonderful
ambassador for his continent that to receive an award from an organisation with which he is
associated is a true honour.

It wasnt until I read that the Centre for the Mind exists to shatter mindsets and stage-manage
spectacular initiatives that I understood why I am being presented with this award at all.

After all, the Virgin Group of companies exist to shatter mindsets about how customer service
should be delivered and how products need to match consumer demands.
And whether I am driving a tank up to a Coke sign in Times Square, or flying solo around the
world in a contraption floating 60,000 ft above the earths surface because of hot air, I guess
that I am always trying to be spectacular.
So now I understand why I am here.
I appreciate that you may prefer to ask me questions, so I will keep my speech to a minimum
and keep some time up my sleeve at the end.
Alan has asked me to provide you with my thoughts on how creativity has been important in the
growth and success of Virgin and has also, somewhat unkindly, asked me to share my views on
What makes a Champion.
I have always admired champions whether in the field of sport, science, business or the arts
who attempt the impossible.
We have all heard countless examples of champions who recount stories of being told by the
establishment or by so-called experts in their field that something cant be done.
I am sure that Sir Edmund Hillary heard many times, that mountain cant be climbed.
Or when Tiger Woods is told, no male golfer can win a grand slam I am absolutely sure that
motivates him to work even harder.
And when Virgin was told that it couldnt create and operate a profitable trans-Atlantic airline
from scratch, it motivated me to get the airline up and running in just six months and we
havent looked back since.

Today, Virgin Atlantic is the second largest long-haul international airline operating services out
of London, flying to 21 destinations all over the world from Shanghai to the Caribbean and soon
Sydney.
Being unafraid of failure is, I believe, one the most important qualities of a champion.
My interest in life comes from setting myself huge, apparently unachievable challenges and
trying to rise above them an interest that was, perhaps, fuelled by my grandmother telling me
at the age of 99: Youve got one go in life, so make the most of it.
Whether I succeed or fail in meeting the challenge is immaterial it is the effort and the
opportunity that drives me. I truly believe that through effort and I guess to some extent risk,
success is waiting around the corner regardless.
However, while champions arent afraid of failure, they are truly made when they learn the art of
turning failure into success.
The only time I could ever be compared to Johnny Wilkinson is when we were both four and I
hazard a guess that neither of us could kick a football. He is a champion now because he learnt
how to do it.
Innate talent and skill are certainly important. As is hard work and perseverance.
In addition to that, my recipe for success has always been to understand my limitations and to
surround myself with talented and brilliant people that can pick up where I leave off. And, most
importantly, to have fun on the journey.
One definition of a champion, as far as I am concerned, is somebody who can empower
peoples ideas in order to fuel success.
It is no secret that I have always attributed the success of the Virgin Group and its brands to the
people that work for our company. I have always had a policy of hiring good motivators over
good business-people. I always look for executives that put their people first and themselves
last.

So, in many ways I believe champions are self-less.

They also are quick to put their faith in others. When a flight attendant approached me
several years ago with an idea to start a wedding business, I told her to go and do it and even
wore a wedding dress to help her promote it.
When Brett Godfrey approached us with a business plan for a low cost Australian airline, written
on the back of a beer coaster, Virgin provided the finance and the optimism and sent him to
Brisbane to get on with the job.
Human intellectual brilliance comes in many forms and a champion knows a brilliant idea
immediately whether it is theirs or someone elses.
The mind which can develop life-saving vaccines is very different from the mind which
structures complex financial transactions, yet they are equally complex and amazing in their
own right.
I have always been fascinated by intellectual brilliance in others - whether it be a concert pianist
like Roger Woodward or a military strategist like General Peter Cosgrove or a medical miracle
worker like the late Dr Victor Chang, or even the mental toughness and adaptability of a Steve
Waugh.
Brilliant minds exist to take us forward as a society - they are a leading indicator of our progress
as human beings.
My own formula for success is actually not to rely on any brilliance in my own mind, or at least
not to solely rely on it. I have decided all the way through my life to surround myself with people
I know have that something special within, and to harness that brilliance for my own benefit and
experience.
My business team has always been the best and brightest I could find anywhere in the world,
and my role has simply been to assist them to achieve their potential.

Brett Godfrey is a great example of that philosophy. Here was a success story waiting to
happen - a brilliant business mind with a specific interest in customer service. All he needed
was support and financing. That's where we came in.
And that has been the case with many other special minds I have been lucky enough to know.
Even the Sex Pistols were brilliant minds in their own way - people underestimate their ability to
communicate a social message through their music. Virgin saw that they had something special
and decided to back them, and they went on to change the way we looked at rock music.
So a life of being surrounded by brilliant and creative minds is something that has been good to
me. I recommend it as an approach to business, and life in general, because it works.
If I could leave you all with one message today it is that Australia must examine ways to support
brilliance and bring it to the fore - particularly in the realm of business and commerce.
Australia is a country which plays well above its weight in producing brilliant minds. From the
superb research skills of Sir Howard Florey to the creative genius of Baz Luhrmann, Australia
has stunned the world with its contributions to all fields of endeavour.
The great challenge that I can now see for Australia is to harness that brilliance as a force for
good in business.
Can Australia encourage its young people towards a new spirit of entrepreneurialism and the
embracing of risk to create economic benefit for the future?
Can we teach Aussie kids that Brett Godfrey is a good role model - a man who has, through a
simple set of very brilliant ideas first sketched on the back of some beer coasters, created
thousands of jobs for his fellow Australians, and an investment vehicle to create wealth for many
hundreds of thousands of his countrymen.
Can we create an educational and cultural environment where young Australians understand
that it's OK to take a risk and invest in their own enterprise and vision?

Can we assist them to create the jobs and wealth of tomorrow?

It's a subject that occupies my mind, and I hope that I can use my ongoing investment in and
love affair with Australia as a way of encouraging that new entrepreneurial spirit.
Before I finish and take any questions you may have, I wanted to touch on the issue of
creativity, especially the role that creativity has had in building the Virgin Group into the success
it is today.
I mentioned Baz Luhrmann before, and I truly do marvel at the creative genius he possesses to
turn the conventional Romeo and Juliet of William Shakespeare into the Romeo and Juliet of
Leonardo Dicaprio and Clare Danes.
While establishing Virgin Records, we witnessed first hand the creativity of Mike Oldfield and
Peter Gabriel, and the unconventional Rolling Stones and The Sex Pistols.
It was during this time that we realised the important counter balance between CREATIVITY
and CONVENTION.
In developing the Virgin business our enemy has always been convention.
At Virgin we firmly believe that convention is the enemy of progress. It stifles creativity and
innovation. It hinders success and destroys a sense of adventure.
However, when it comes to other businesses, we have found that people usually bow to
convention over creativity.

How many businesses do you know that would empower every individual in the
organisation to implement change?
At Virgin, we encourage and reward creativity in our employees and, as I have already said, we
have enjoyed the success of empowering other peoples good ideas. We want and we have
employees who can pick up the phone and call us with their ideas, dreams and problems.
How many would grow a brand organically, with the cost, time, risk and creativity that
involves, when a quicker option is to buy an established business?
Business convention dictates that it is less risky and more prudent to acquire successful brands
than build your own. I have always found that it is more fun, and ultimately more successful, to
build a brand and business from scratch and tailor it to your needs and the demands of your
customers.
How many businesses do you know that would put having fun ahead of customer or
shareholder satisfaction in a list of their business priorities?
Convention dictates that a company should look after its shareholders first, its customers
second and its employees last. At Virgin we do the opposite. It seems common sense to me
that if you start with a happy and motivated workforce, youre much more likely to have happy
customers which, of course, leads to larger profits and happy shareholders.
If a company believes in itself and is having fun, the net result is customers who enjoy the
product. For any of you who have flown Virgin Blue and I hope you all have the first thing
that would have struck you is that our flight attendants actually look like they enjoy their job and
are having fun. I am not sure the same can be said of our competitor.

And finally, how many businesses do you know that specialised in music would back a
creative and some said crazy decision to start an airline in competition to British
Airways?
It really was the belief in a creative, left field idea that was the making of Virgin.
I would like to thank you all once again for joining me here today. As I said at the outset, it is an
absolute honour to receive this award and I look forward to answering any questions you may
have.