Background
Ridgway was born in Tavistock, Devon, and grew up on a farm in Bantham near Salcombe.
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Steve Ridgway
Edit ProfileEducation
He gained an Economics Bachelor of Science degree (awarded by the University of London) from Oxford Brookes University.
Career
He went to school in Kingsbridge, south Devon
He later gained a Postgraduate Certificate in Education in 1976. He worked for Cavenham Foods (owned by Sir James Goldsmith and later sold to Générale Occidentale) as a sales manager, and briefly became a teacher. He moved to Miami and began his business career working for a builder of power boats, Ted Toleman.
He worked for two years as Business Development Manager at the Toleman Group.
One of these boats was the Virgin Atlantic Challenger, and he became the Chief Pilot. From 1981-1985 he worked for Cougar Marine, who built the Virgin boats.
Virgin Atlantic
He joined Virgin Atlantic in 1989. In 1990 he became Managing Director of Virgin Freeway.
He became a board director in 1994.
Formerly Virgin Atlantic"s vice-president of customer services, he was appointed as Managing Director of Virgin Atlantic in April 1998. He became Chief Executive in October 2001. He announced his retirement as Chief Executive Officer of Virgin Atlantic on 10 September 2012, and left the company on 1 February 2013.
Sunday Times - Andrew Davidson January 2009
Daily Mail February 2008
The Times (London), 28 August 2006: Powers in the boardroom - Number plain sailing for Virgin chief
British Broadcasting Corporation News: Virgin staff "shocked" by pilot Includes photo of Ridgway and his statement following the arrest of a Virgin Atlantic pilot.
Video clips
Aviation News Today October 2008 on YouTube
Bloomberg Television September 2008 on YouTube.
