Alan's boy wonders...
AN ex professional footballer and an award-winning dancer are among this year's lads battling it out to be Sir Alan's new apprentice.
Ben Clarke
Age: 22
Career: Trainee Stock Broker
Qualifications: BA (Hons) Economics and Business
Lives: Belfast
Clarke is a rebellious stockbroker who considers himself to be ruthless and money obsessed. The former Gavin Henson lookalike is inspired by the Playboy brand.
He says: "Me making money is better than sex."
Howard Ebison
Age: 24
Career: Retail Business Manager
Qualifications: CIMA Parts Qualified Accountant - BSc (Hons) Maths and Business Studies
Lives: Derby
The award-winning dancer is an area manager to 10 pubs and believes that people enjoy working for him. He hopes one day to set up his own consultancy.
He says: "I am a credible businessman who wants to go far. I'm incredibly ambitious. If I don't go far down this route I shall go far down another route."
James McQuillan
Age: 32
Career: Senior Commercial Manager
Qualifications: MA Hons in Economics
Lives: Surrey
The football referee, sports fanatic and former child chess champion describes himself as a "smoother". He has worked as a labourer, trolley collector and nightclub doorman.
He says: "I'm astute and shrew and smart... maybe blunt at tim es."
Majid Nagra
Age: 28
Career: Business Development Manager
Qualifications: BSC Computer Science
Lives: Coventry
Nagra was expelled from school but has changed his life and works with beauty centres and charities while running his own car hire business.
He says: "I think that business is the backbone to this world, without companies buying and selling there wouldn't be any economy."
Noorul Choudhury
Age: 33
Career: Science Teacher
Qualifications: GTTP, CIM
Lives: Rochdale
The fashion-obsessed teacher aims to start up a men's tailoring business and believes that Argos should be banned from selling jewellery.
He says: "I have always been ambitious and driven and I've got the capabilities to deliver. I am not all talk... I can manage a team of people, total strangers, because I am feisty and have an attitude."
Phillip Taylor
Age: 29
Career: Estate Agent
Qualifications: NEBS Certificate in Management
Lives: County Durham
Taylor believes that you should make friends but make money while doing it.
He says: "Business is the new rock and roll and I'm Elvis Presley."
Rocky Andrews
Age: 21
Career: Sandwich Chain Owner
Qualifications: N/A
Lives: North Yorkshire
Andrews is this year's youngest candidate and already earns more than the salary on offer from Sir Alan.
He left school at 16 to pursue a career in football with Middlesbrough United but was diagnosed with arthritis making it impossible to continue. He started up a sandwich business aged 17 which now includes 15 shops across the north-east of England.
He says: "For me, business is about hard work, attention to detail, being willing to make mistakes and learning from these mistakes."
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This article has 2 comments
So Mr 'Mostly Harmless' has finally gone, inevitable really, all Ben had to do was get him in the boardroom and it was a done deal. Firing him took less time that it did for Ben to make his mind up about who else he was going to bring in with him - James, no Debra ...
That said this was a week when neither team won, they both lost; it is just that Philip's team lost by less than Ben's team. This was also a week when Sir Alan pointed out (not in these exact words I know) that all the teams really had to do was take the 'productive lazy' approach to the task. They did not have to sell all the items, they should have focused their efforts on identifying the valuable 'gems' in the pack and then selling them hard and at a profit. The old '80/20' rule really. If they had done this victory was assured.
Philip showed no real leadership skills and continued to override his team, despite a positive start with Lorraine (Cassandra as Margaret now calls her), and Ben was worse. He looked completely shellshocked this week and was a sure fire candidate for the taxi home if Noorul hadn't have still been there (being Mostly Harmless).
High points: Sir Alan's eyes when Margaret started on about Cassandra (he had no idea who she was) and Sir Alan's quote of the week 'I hope you're bringing in people for the right reasons. I hope you're not thinking about James, that there might be a village missing an idiot somewhere...'
By Peter Taylor. Posted April 30 2009 at 11:53 AM.
Bring on the new series of The Apprentice.
I love it because it is the one thing that gets people talking about my profession - Project Management; even my kids, and wife, learnt to understand a little more of what 'Dad' does every day at work from Sir Alan and his team of hopefuls. Actually I hope what I do is a little more effective but you know what I mean.
But the would be recruits should be very wary of the role of Project Manager at the start of the series; managing a bunch of people you don't know, who are all on a huge ego trip and who are all after the 'one thing' is not something that offers much hope for any project manager and has proven to be high risk in previous series.
By Peter Taylor. Posted April 2 2009 at 3:51 PM.