Jessica Ennis' rise to the top
- By Richard Branson -
- Aug 08, 2012
It was with great pride I watched Jessica Ennis cross the finish line on Saturday night to become Olympic champion, not only from a British perspective – she used to work for Virgin!
Seeing someone realise their dreams is wonderful, luckily over the years there’s been more than a few Virgin employees who have come from humble beginnings to achieve greatness.
Mandy Ellis, one time receptionist at Virgin Mobile Canada, ended up running our Canada Foundation. While the cleaning lady at our Virgin Records recording studio, Barbara Jeffries, became managing director of the entire recording division.
It just goes to show what’s possible in life. Jessica is a fine example of what can be done with hard work allied to great talent. She has gone from a receptionist at our Virgin Active Health Club in Sheffield to the darling of a nation.
We hope she enjoyed her time at Virgin Active and look forward to inspiring another generation of great athletes out of our clubs.
Have you come across any other examples of people achieving greatness? Or maybe you have aspirations to do an Ennis – let me know!
Image from London Annie on Flickr
By Richard Branson. Founder of Virgin Group
