By Paige Hasaballah

Sir Richard Branson was the guest speaker to Brisbane’s most powerful business women at the Brisbane Convention Centre this morning.

 

The 63-year-old billionaire addressed the Business Chicks Breakfast and spoke about gender equality in the workplace, his thoughts on retirement and space travel.

“I always believed in shooting for the most outrageous, ridiculously unattainable goals, such as going into space,” he said.

“I believe in our lifetime a quarter of the people in this room will have had a chance to be an astronaut.”

Video: Virgin Galactic YouTube

Sir Richard watched Virgin Galactic’s first rocket test in the Mojave Desert at the end of last month and described the experience as awe-inspiring.

“It was completely and utterly ridiculous, I had the biggest grin ever,” he said.

The event was trending on Twitter within the first hour, with hundreds of tweets flooding the feed including one from Sir Richard.

He said entrepreneurial businesses were based around a simple idea to improve people’s lives and his motto was ‘screw it, just do it’.

Sir Richard also spoke fondly about his charity work and his passion about the Virgin Unite program.

Virgin Unite focuses on bridging the gap between major business leaders and charities in desperate need of funding.

The theme of the breakfast focussed on inspiring and motivating women in business.

Sir Richard made no comment about the new regional arm of his airline he announced in Perth yesterday.