London: Richard Branson has been voted Britain’s most admired boss over the past five decades.
In a poll of top bosses, the founder and chairman of Virgin group was voted the runaway winner surpassing vacuum cleaner designer Sir James Dyson and the late Lord Weinstock, who built GEC into an electrical and engineering empire.
Branson’s Virgin group comprises more than 400 companies.
At the age of sixteen his first business venture was a magazine called Student. In 1970, he set up a mail-order record business. In 1972, he opened a chain of record stores, Virgin Records, later known as Virgin Megastores. Â Branson’s Virgin brand grew rapidly during the 1980s, as he set up Virgin Atlantic and expanded the Virgin Records music label.
According to the Forbes 2012 list of billionaires, Branson is the sixth richest citizen of the UK, with an estimated net worth of $4.6 billion.