Will Whitehorn

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Will Whitehorn and Richard Branson at the nose of SpaceShipTwo, 2010

William Elliot Whitehorn (born 1960) is a British business executive. Until December 2010 he was President of Virgin Galactic,[1] company which plans to offer space tourism flights to the paying public.[2]

Biography[]

Whitehorn was born in Edinburgh, Scotland along with siblings Donald, Edward and Katherine. He attended Edinburgh Academy and Aberdeen University.[2] He was also an air cadet in his teenage years.[3]

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 after being talent-spotted by Sir Richard Branson, 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.[when?] In that role, where he was effectively the official spokesperson for the company, he was sometimes characterized as Richard Branson's "right-hand man".[2]

From 2007 to 2011 he was president of Virgin's space program, Virgin Galactic,[4] but left owing to the relocation of the testing area.[citation needed] 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.[4]

Whitehorn was Chairman of the Transport Systems Catapult project from 2013 to 2016,[5][6] and President of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport in the UK for 2016–17.[7]

References[]


  1. ^ LinkedIn: Will Whithorn[permanent dead link]
  2. ^ Jump up to: a b c Mather, Adrian (2004-10-08). First Edinburgh man in space. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 9 August 2011. Retrieved 2009-05-08.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  3. ^ "Famous cadets". RAF Air Cadets. Retrieved 3 May 2019.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b "Management". Stagecoach Group. Retrieved 3 May 2019.
  5. ^ "Whitehorn appointed Transport Systems Catapult chair". Rail Technology Magazine. 22 February 2013. Retrieved 31 March 2015.
  6. ^ "Transport Systems Catapult announce Terry Hill as new Chairman". Catapult. 22 March 2016. Retrieved 3 May 2019.
  7. ^ "Will Whitehorn to become CILT president". Logistics Manager Magazine. 18 February 2016. Retrieved 3 May 2019.

Bibliography[]

External links[]

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