solutions and personalized attention. The air- lines — Virgin Atlantic, Virgin America, Virgin Australia — are perfect examples; if you go into social media, you’ll see countless examples of how our employees went above and beyond to help guests, making a big difference in their lives. We give employees the freedom and responsi- bility to make decisions and work towards solu- tions that show our customers that we care — and we are rewarded with customer service and best-of awards and, most importantly, loyalty.

You recently dressed up as a female flight attendant after honoring a bet that you lost and served pas- sengers on a charity flight from Perth to Kuala Lum- pur. What role has humor played in your success and the success of others you have observed? The world is a tough place with difficult prob- lems that continue to challenge the minds of some of our smartest thinkers and practitioners. We all deserve to have a laugh — and often that means making fun of myself, which I’m the first to offer to do.

Dressing up for that charity flight was great fun

— especially dumping a tray of orange juice on the boss! — and for an important cause.

You have attended and spoken at many confer- ences all over the world. What best practices have you observed at meetings? I learn best by meeting people informally and listening and talking. While big presentations offer thought-provoking looks into the lives and lessons of fascinating people, I gain just as much insight and inspiration talking to everyday people, during travels, in the elevator, over meals. A lively, intimate, informal setting can inspire you to be open to new ideas and people; we hope to create that kind of environment at our new Virgin Hotels, but it can also be achieved in large conference events with the help of warm and friendly facilitators who make sure that everyone is relaxed and having a good time. It is encouraging that there are so many bril- liant conferences to choose from.

Are you available (based on your schedule, of course) to speak at conferences; and, if yes, what are your fees and requirements? Virgin Unite is our charity group, [founded] to incubate new, independent approaches to

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ON THE WEB

› Read Richard Branson’s blog post about the latest Leadership Gathering, held in July: convn.org/ branson-leadership.

› To learn more about Virgin Unite, watch CEO Jean Oelwang’s TEDx Oxbridge talk: convn .org/oelwang.

leadership, including the Elders, the Carbon War Room, Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship, and The B Team. I accept a handful of speaking engagements a year to raise funds to operate Virgin Unite — so the donations we receive go to the front line — and to try to impart a few words of what I’ve learned over the last 40 years or so. One-hundred percent of the funds go to charity; conferences are a great way to help raise the funds and also meet some wonderful people.

You are known as a person willing to try anything. What would you not try? Smoking cigarettes!

What are your plans for affordable space travel? Those plans are happening now: We are building the world’s first spaceline, and as commercial operations start, prices will decrease, making it affordable for many more people to experience space and see our beautiful planet from the black- ness of space.

Virgin Galactic has signed up more future

astronauts to travel to space than the number of people who have already gone to space. While they wait for flights to start, our future astronauts have started a STEM education scholarship fund — we are already making a difference. It is a very exciting time for us all, and I couldn’t be more proud of the brilliant men and women who are dedicating their lives to help make space travel possible for us all.

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Susan Sarfati, CAE, is CEO of High Performance Strategies LLC (sarfatihighperformance.com), which focuses on organizational assessments, innovative thinking in organizational strategy, leadership and management, moving from ideas to execution, and building a human- focused learning culture. She served as CEO of the Greater Washington Society of Association Executives and executive vice president of ASAE. She can be reached at susan@ssarfati.com.