Richard Branson double-booked his own job interview. The candidate stuck in traffic with him for 2.5 hours is now Virgin’s CEO

A job interview with Richard Branson , the billionaire founder of the Virgin brand, is likely to be nerve-racking enough on its own.

But when then-31-year-old lawyer Josh Bayliss arrived at Branson’s London mansion for what he expected to be a fairly standard interview, Branson realized he had another appointment across town—and was already running late.

Rather than cancel the interview, Branson invited Bayliss to come along for the ride.

“It was probably on a good day, a 45-minute drive,” Bayliss recently recalled to Fortune .

In reality, it turned into a two-and-a-half hour adventure that he took full advantage of.

“We got stuck in traffic, and that was great for me,” Bayliss said.

“I got a chance to really interrogate Richard and find out a lot more about what made him tick.” Bayliss ended up landing the job of general counsel in 2005—and that long traffic-filled interview marked the beginning of a relationship with Branson that would further shape his career.

By 2011, Bayliss was promoted to CEO of Virgin Group —and just this year added company chair to his resume—overseeing a sprawling portfolio that includes an airline , telecommunications giant, gym chain, and commercial space-tourism business.

Nearly two decades after that first interview, Bayliss, now 53, said what drew him to Branson in the first place remains a defining part of the Virgin Group founder.

“There is an energy to Richard and an appetite to learn about what he doesn’t already know, to try what he hasn’t already tried, which I think really does blend very well with my own ceaseless curiosity,” Bayliss said.

Bayliss went from aspiring scientist to lawyer before setting his sights on the C-suite Bayliss was born in Auckland, the capital of New Zealand, to a modest family, with his father playing guitar and a mother working as a hairdresser.

Becoming a CEO was hardly something he had mapped out for himself growing up.

In primary school, he always wanted to become a scientist, inspired by the Incredible Hulk’s transformational superpowers.

But after taking a few science courses, he realized his interests leaned more toward the humanities than STEM.