William Elliot Whitehorn (born 1960) is a British business executive. Until December 2010 he was President of

Virgin Galactic Virgin Galactic is an American spaceflight company founded by Richard Branson and his British Virgin Group retains an 11.9% stake through Virgin Investments Limited. It is headquartered in California, and operates from New Mexico. The compan ...

, company which plans to offer

space tourism Space tourism is human space travel for recreational purposes. There are several different types of space tourism, including orbital, suborbital and lunar space tourism. During the period from 2001 to 2009, seven space tourists made eight s ...

flights to the paying public.Mather, Adrian (2004-10-08). First Edinburgh man in space.

Biography

Whitehorn was born in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...

, Scotland along with siblings Donald, Edward and Katherine. He attended

Edinburgh Academy The Edinburgh Academy is an independent day school in Edinburgh, Scotland, which was opened in 1824. The original building, on Henderson Row in the city's New Town, is now part of the Senior School. The Junior School is located on Arboretum Ro ...

and

Aberdeen University , mottoeng = The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom , established = , type = Public research universityAncient university , endowment = £58.4 million (2021) , budget ...

. He was also an air cadet in his teenage years. Whitehorn's early career was as a crewman on North Sea helicopters and also with the Thomas Cook travel agency. In 1987, Whitehorn joined the

Virgin Group Virgin Group Ltd. is a British multinational venture capital conglomerate founded by Richard Branson and Nik Powell in February 1970. Virgin Group's date of incorporation is listed as 1989 by the Companies House, who class it as a holding co ...

after being talent-spotted by

Sir Richard Branson Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is a British billionaire, entrepreneur, and business magnate. In the 1970s he founded the Virgin Group, which today controls more than 400 companies in various fields. Branson expressed ...

, after he had suggested a number of ideas to Virgin the previous year. He rose to become the head of Virgin's public affairs department. In that role, where he was effectively the official spokesperson for the company, he was sometimes characterized as Richard Branson's "right-hand man". From 2007 to 2011 he was president of Virgin's space program,

, but left owing to the relocation of the testing area. Since 2011 he has been a non-executive director of Stagecoach Group, where he was appointed Deputy Chairman in 2016, and he has the same roles at

Good Energy Good Energy Group PLC is a British energy company based in Chippenham, Wiltshire that provides services in the electrification of transport and decentralised renewable energy generation such as domestic solar panels. The company is also an energy ...

. Whitehorn was Chairman of the Transport Systems Catapult project from 2013 to 2016, and President of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport in the UK for 2016–17.

References

Bibliography

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Whitehorn, Will Virgin Galactic Businesspeople from Edinburgh People educated at Edinburgh Academy Living people 1960 births Virgin Group people