NAME: Sir Richard Branson

AGE: 53

NATIONALITY: British

CLAIM TO FAME: The entrepreneur with a taste for high-risk adventures

“MY interest in life comes from setting myself huge, apparently unachievable challenges and trying to rise above them,” writes Sir Richard Branson in his autobiography Losing My Virginity. One of Britain’s richest men, Sir Richard recently became the first customer to drive the ‘Gibbs Aquada’ a 150,000 pound amphibious vehicle, which converts from a car into a boat at the touch of a button, at the London Boat Show. The British-built car-cum-boat has a jet propulsion motor, wheels that retract and a speedboat-like hull which can travel at 100mph on land and 30mph on water.

Sir Richard was so enthusiastic about the James Bond-style open-top three-seater Aquada after his test drive that he announced his plans to set yet another world record with it: “One day I envisage teams from across the globe racing across the English Channel in amphibious vehicles to set records and win trophies. In fact I will attempt to set a cross-Channel record myself this summer (as the first and fastest car across the English Channel) just to get the ball rolling.”

Branson is already the back-up pilot for a bid by fellow adventurer Steve Fossett to fly a custom-built light jet aircraft, the Virgin Atlantic GlobalFlyer, in the first solo-piloted non-stop trip around the world without re-fuelling later this year. The two billionaires hope the aircraft will complete the Jules Verne-style voyage across 25,000 miles in 80 hours.

Pretty much of an eccentric, Sir Richard combines his enthusiasm for running the Virgin group of companies with his love for high-risk, high-adventure world record-breaking attempts. To promote the Virgin Atlantic name, Richard became involved in a number of high-publicity record-breaking attempts throughout the 1980s and ‘90s. In 1986, his boat Virgin Atlantic Challenger II crossed the Atlantic Ocean in the fastest ever-recorded time. A year later he flew the Virgin Atlantic Flyer balloon — the largest ever built — across the Atlantic. And his most high-profile charity work was his nearly successful bid to turn England’s National Lottery into a not-for-profit venture.

Like many other entrepreneurs, Richard Branson started out by risking everything for a bright idea, leaving school at 16 to start a magazine. After founding the hugely successful Virgin Records music label in the 1970s, worth an estimated $6 billion, Branson’s Virgin Group now includes planes, trains, automobiles, hotels, cinemas, financial services, telecommunications, bridal wear, soft drinks and cosmetics.

With such risky record-breaking feats for him to attempt this year, one can foresee this adventurous entrepreneur busy trying to get ready to achieve the impossible. And seeing his past record, nothing will be too tough for Branson to achieve.