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The Apprentice winners: Where are they now?

The new series of The Apprentice begins tomorrow as young hopefuls compete for being crowned this year's winner and a £250,000 investment in their new business venture from Lord Sugar.

This is now the 11th series in the popular BBC programme, but what has become of the previous winners?

Here Keith Tully a partner of Real Business Rescue reveals all.

Series 10: Mark Wright


The Apprentice winner Mark Wright celebrates with Lord Sugar (Ian West/PA Wire)


Aussie Mark dangled the 'digital era' carrot to Lord Sugar who invested £250,000 into Mark's new search engine optimisation firm, Climb Online, which has turned over a profit in its first year of trading.

Related story: Meet this year's Apprentice hopefuls

The confident 25-year-old from Down Under, who used to psych out fellow candidates by not packing his suitcase before trips to the infamous boardroom, was the tenth winner of The Apprentice and is a 50/50 shareholder at Climb Online alongside Lord Sugar.

Series nine: Leah Totton






Leah from Londonderry in Northern lreland was the third winner to pick up a £250,000 investment from Lord Sugar who is now an equal shareholder in her cosmetic skin clinic based in Moorgate, London.

Related content: Why entrepreneur Matt Southall isn't a fan of The Apprentice

Leah, a qualified doctor and now one of the UK's youngest cosmetic surgeons, offers anti-ageing treatments, laser hair removal and effective alternatives to surgical liposuction through her clinic which is appropriately named Dr Leah.

Series 8: Ricky Martin



The former pro wrestler who famously dubbed himself 'the reflection of perfection' won over Lord Sugar with his business plan for a specialist science and technology recruitment company.

Today they are partners in Hyper Recruitment Solutions with Ricky managing the day-to-day running of the firm.

Series Seven: Tom Pellereau



Tom was the first winner of The Apprentice in its new format where, instead of a job, Lord Sugar awarded his champion a £250,000 investment into their own business.

Known by his moniker 'Inventor Tom', he is involved in numerous innovative products including the Stylfile, the extra safe baby feeding brand Babisil, as well as a screen to prevent damage to musicians’ ear drums.

Tom's victory in The Apprentice came despite him being the worst-performing winner in the show's history losing eight of the eleven weekly tasks.


Series Six: Stella English



Series six winner Stella made the headlines for taking Lord Sugar to court for constructive dismissal – a case she ultimately lost.

She had initially impressed on the show and was tipped for triumph from start to finish, so it was little surprise she was hired and rewarded with a job at Lord Sugar's Viglen IT company.

However, Stella quickly became disillusioned in her role and described herself as an 'overpaid lackey' on £100,000 a year doing 'menial' jobs.

She now works as a host on Crowd Box, the world’s first crowd funding TV channel, and says she has no regrets with how her Apprentice experience concluded.

Series Five: Yasmina Siadatan





Yasmina was second favourite to Kate Walsh in a hotly contested series five final but overcame the odds to win a £100,000 job at Lord Sugar's Amscreen Healthcare division, working alongside his son Simon.

After a year in the role, Yasmina went on maternity leave but never fully returned to work after falling pregnant again just months after giving birth to her first child.

She resigned in 2011 to concentrate on her family and these days, she is the creative director of Start Up Loans – a company that provides mentoring and finance to 60,000 entrepreneurs and is funded by the UK Government.

She also co-owns the Mya Lacarte restaurant in Reading, which specialises in produce grown in Britain.

Series Four: Lee McQueen



Lee was infamously chosen to be Lord Sugar’s apprentice in series four despite lying on his CV about the amount of time he spent at university.

He survived that and also managed to survive calling in sick on his first day at Amscreen before going on to spend two years at the company as development director in 'digital signage'.

In 2010 he set up a recruitment and training company called Raw Talent Academy based in Oxfordshire.

He has also developed Talent Hub, a division of the business which specialises in experienced sales people.

Series Three: Simon Ambrose


Out of all The Apprentice winners over the last decade, Simon's three years as an employee under Lord Sugar represents the longest stint of any apprentice.

He worked in the Amsprop Estates division but decided to walk away from the £100,000-a-year job to pursue a variety of interests including investing in a London restaurant, members club and art gallery and running an events production company as well as working as a property developer.

Series three is now also renowned as 'the one with that Katie Hopkins' in it.

Series Two: Michelle Dewbury



Michelle was the second winner of The Apprentice fending off the no-nonsense Ruth Badger in a fiercely contested final.

However her career working for Lord Sugar was short-lived and he later commented that Michelle, and series six winner Stella, are the only apprentices to leave their new jobs before the end of the initial 12-month contracts – though Michelle and Lord Sugar did part on good terms.

These days, in addition to appearing on Sky News alongside host Eamonn Holmes, Michelle works with the Sun newspaper on their unemployment roadshow, runs two businesses and is about to launch a new business in the New Year aimed at helping job-seekers get back into work.

Series One: Tim Campbell



A decade ago, Tim became the first ever winner of The Apprentice landing a job at Lord Sugar's Amstrad division but two years later, he left his 'comfort zone' to setup the social enterprise Bright Ideas Trust designed to help young entrepreneurs from disadvantaged backgrounds.

The self-confessed 'Frank Bruno of the business world' was quickly becoming a heavyweight in the world of social enterprise.

In the 2012 New Year Honours List, he was made an MBE for his services to enterprise culture. He is also currently London’s Ambassador for Training and Enterprise, appointed by the Mayor of London Boris Johnson.

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