Kiwi big player in Virgin's empire

Josh Bayliss was interviewed by Branson in a traffic jam. Photo / Greg Bowker

More than 20 years ago when Kiwi Josh Bayliss was an Auckland schoolboy, Sir Richard Branson was well on his way to cementing his place among the world's great entrepreneurs.

Today 38-year-old Bayliss is co-chief executive of the Virgin Group.

He is part of a team responsible for managing Branson family investments worth several billion pounds across the various Virgin companies and controlling how the brand is developed, applied and seen.

As opportunities have presented themselves he has been fortunate to be in the right place at the right time, Bayliss says.

Bayliss studied at Mt Albert Grammar, Auckland University and trained as a lawyer before working in Wellington, Auckland and London.

He joined Virgin in 2005 as general counsel after an interview with Branson in the back of a car stuck in a London traffic jam.

In July Bayliss was appointed Virgin Group's co-chief executive.

As a New Zealander working in London, he says, he could not be pegged in the English system of school and university background.

"It was very much, 'Well, we can't categorise this guy so is he any good or isn't he?'

"And Virgin is the same, it's very meritocratic and I particularly enjoy that."

The interview showed him that Branson was open-minded and a democratic leader, a change from the previous management styles he had encountered.

"It's a fantastically fun place to work," he says.

"The people I work with I regard as being among the most humorous, the most engaging and the most compelling people to spend time with."

An entrepreneurial spirit gives the company the freedom to try different things, he says.

The goal for the fledgling Virgin Galactic enterprise was to become a transport operation rather than simply a space tourism business.

And Virgin Mobile had been folded in with two cable companies to create a company which affected the lives of millions of people in the UK, Bayliss said.

"That has changed the game for us and we think has given us the capability to go into people's lives, in, for instance, financial services, where we're pursuing the acquisition of a bank in the UK and in new sectors which are adjacent to the ones that we already invest in, for example, education."