Richard Branson Fast Track 100, sponsored by Virgin Group, at its yearly event, where places to join Richard Branson on trips to South Africa to provide coaching and mentoring to students are auctioned to attendees. In 2009, Jason Luckhurst and Boyd Kershaw of Practicus, Martin Ainscough of the Ainscough Group and Matthew Riley of Daisy Communications helped raise £150,000 through the auction. In March 2008, Branson hosted an environmental gathering at his private island, Necker Island, in the Caribbean with several prominent entrepreneurs, celebrities, and world leaders. They discussed global warming-related problems facing the world, hoping that the meeting would be a
Richard Branson wildlife poaching and trafficking. Branson is an opponent of the death penalty, stating: "the death penalty is always cruel, barbaric and inhumane. It has no place in the world." The U.S. is one of the few countries that practiced the death penalty in 2015, and on 30 September 2015 Branson released a letter in support of American inmate Richard Glossip on the day he was due to be executed, buying an ad in "The Oklahoman" newspaper which had advocated the execution. Branson stated the evidence against Glossip was flawed and that "every person is deserving of a fair trial", adding: