Face to face: Will Whitehorn

Which rather nicely brings us full circle to today where we sit looking through rain-splattered windows at the mighty piece of architecture that is the SSE Hydro on Glasgow's Clydeside. After 20 years working with Sir Richard Branson, Whitehorn moved on to to take up a number of non-executive appointments, including chairman of the SECC.

Despite the rain and the darkening skies, he never fails to marvel at the structure. "I love the technology of the building. It is based on a geodesic roof structure, something that was developed by Barnes Wallis, who was a hero of mine. He also designed the Wellington bomber, with its geodesic structure," comments Whitehorn.

"As a result of the structure of the roof the building is self supporting, so you don't have any pillars. The furthest away seat is nearer to the artists than the nearest seat in the 02 (in London) - and that's what has made it such a success."

With an infectious enthusiasm for every project he touches, Whitehorn is the very definition of enthusiasm and nothing seems impossible. Headhunted by Sir Richard: tick. Spokesman for Virgin when it was embroiled in the dirty tricks campaign with British Airways in the early 1990s: tick. Mastermind of the West Coast Main Line franchise and now working with Stagecoach on the East Coast Main Line: Double tick.

It is fair to say he has been surrounded by planes, trains and automobiles for most of his life. Born in Edinburgh, he remembers his parents taking him at weekends to Turnhouse airport to watch planes landing and taking off.

"I think I had learned to fly in my head by the time I was quite young. I wasn't interested per se in technology, I was interested in what it did. I had a motorbike when I was a teenager, I've still got one today. I was breaking them and taking them apart and fixing them at a young age," he says.

After growing up on a farm in East Lothian, near Haddington, Whitehorn headed north to Aberdeen to study history and economics. Life changed dramatically when he was only 19 and his father, who had been a prisoner of war after he was captured at the Battle of Arnhem, died.

"At the time they thought it was his war injuries because he was always predicted to die young," says Whitehorn. "His anterior artery burst - it happened to me 18 months ago. I turned out to have a defect in exactly the same place. I inherited it, which I didn't know I had."

Whitehorn, incidentally, nearly died after his heart attack and though he has a busy workload he says nothing keeps him awake at night these days. His role is simple, being part of a solution to a problem.

After a stint as a helicopter crewman in the North Sea when he graduated, and surviving an accident, Whitehorn moved south to take up a graduate traineeship with Thomas Cook and then TSB, where he worked on its floatation, and that of a number of other companies.

"Then I got the call from a young entrepreneur with a beard asking if I would go for an interview," he smiles. Sir Richard knew of Whitehorn's work on the flotation of Chrysalis Records on the Stock Market and his career with Virgin began.

"The funny thing was I had always wanted to work for Virgin, ever since I was a teenager. The Virgin record shop in Frederick Street in Edinburgh was underneath my dad's architect's office and I always wanted to work there. I loved the company. It was a very exciting business in those days," he says.

This wasn't the first time Whitehorn has crossed paths with Virgin. At university he had signed a band to play in the students' union called Johnny and the Self Abusers, later to be better known as Simple Minds, and when the A&R person for Virgin wanted to sign them, Virgin had to buy out the contract. It paid for a new cinema for the students' union.

"Because of that I had followed Virgin so when I got the chance to go and work there it was a dream because I was interested in the music business and the entertainment industry as well as aviation and flying," he enthuses.

"I was also really interested in business models and economics so it was like the perfect storm of reasons to go and work somewhere."

Whitehorn stayed with the company for 20 years, then latterly part-time on the space project for five years. He came up with the idea for Virgin to follow the route of branded venture capital and based it on the Japanese keiretsu model, one brand and lots of different corporate structures from bank to retailer. Apart from growing the airline in the early years, Whitehorn was involved in corporate affairs, the launch of Virgin Money and the trains.

He says he learned a lot from the dirty tricks campaign with BA about business practice, business sense, how organisational structures can lose control themselves and some of the ins and outs of the media that later became extant in the second half of the 2000s. He is referring to phone hacking and reveals that he accepted a settlement after he was targeted by a newspaper.

"The two most important things in your working life are reputation and reputation. That's for you as an individual and for the organisation you work for," he says. "I have worked with so many people and you realise when you get to know them they have had that as their watchword.

"One of the people I've most enjoyed working with, apart from Sir Richard, has been Sir Ian Grant, who was chairman of the SECC and retired last Christmas. He absolutely had those standards of how one behaves and manages a business," he explains.

" When you come across it, it's incredibly admirable to watch it in action. I got involved here and this project has been difficult but it has been a labour of love for everyone who has worked on it, and for John Sharkey who is chief executive and did so much to make sure it happened."

Looking back on the success of the Hydro since it opened last year, Whitehorn comments that it wasn't as easy task. From getting funding organised to difficulties with builders, it was a massive undertaking.

Now the Hydro is here is has more than fulfilled the business plan for the SECC.

"No-one thought you could take a business that has essentially been making a small profit for a long time and transform it to this extent. I have seen that happen before with things like transforming a railway with a massive infrastructure project," he points out.

"I know you can build the numbers and if you have sound economics under the numbers then they are going to work."

He adds: "The people of Strathclyde are the biggest spenders on live entertainment in Europe. We are going to have the most profitable year the SECC has ever had this year and that gives us the big opportunity now for the future. And that is to transform this side (SECC).

"The Hydro is now the third busiest indoor arena in the world, we have overtaken Madison Square Gardens. So there is no reason we can't turn the SECC and the Hydro into the number one exhibition, conference and entertainment venue certainly in the United Kingdom and possibly the whole of Europe over the next five to eight years."

When we meet the Virgin Galactic tragedy, in which a test pilot died, is still in the headlines. Whitehorn is adamant that the project will succeed. The fact that neither the rocket motor nor the nitrous oxide exploded is testament to the fact that the system will not fail in future.

He has been described as a transport visionary and as well as working with Stagecoach on the successful bid for the East Coast Main Line - "that will be a transformational job" - he is chairman of the UK Government's Transport Systems Catapult, working on the intelligent mobility project driverless cars. They are to be tested in Milton Keynes but he believes there is every reason they could also be trialled in Glasgow.

"Milton Keynes is one of the few places you can do this alongside the street grid because they've got a very large pedestrian grid. If it works there it will be fun to bring it to Glasgow because you have a good grid system," he says.

These days Whitehorn lives on a small farm in West Sussex with his partner Alison. His children are grown up and have left home and his spare time is spent planning to restock his herd of pedigree Sussex cattle and driving across his land in a Second World War jeep that was used in the television series Band of Brothers.

His business roles are continually added to. He is now chairman of the Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh and has been made an honorary fellow of the Marketing Society, probably the only one who is also a fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society. His grandfather would be proud.