Prime Minister Gordon Brown might be having a hard time with women, but there is clearly no glass ceiling in his good friend Sir Alan Sugar’s boardroom.
“The Apprentice” final saw Kate Walsh and Yasmina Siadatan go stiletto-to-stiletto — “You’re the best that I’ve ever had in the final in this boardroom,” said Sugar.
The two 27-year-olds had to come up with a new type of chocolate and develop a marketing campaign for their brand which they had to pitch to advertising, confectionery and retail experts.
Licensing development manager Walsh’s “Choc D’Amour” was the better tasting chocolate but at £13 a pop left Sugar less than impressed.
Restaurateur Siadatan’s “Cocoa Electric” brand was seven pounds cheaper and if the taste of her chocolates clearly left a lot to be desired — one retail buyer said no shopper would come back for another box – the mass-market pitch she put together had Sugar salivating.
It was enough for the tycoon to raise his finger and point it in Siadatan’s direction and tell her she was hired. Promising Sugar she would be his best ever apprentice, Siadatan will now get the chance to work in his business empire on a 100,000 pounds-a-year salary.
“I’m absolutely up for it,” said Siadatan. “I think Sir Alan knows my qualities, the best way to make use of me.”
That will involve working for Sugar’s Amscreen company, which supplies doctor’s surgeries and hospitals with free-of-charge digital signage units that display adverts and patient messages.
“Yasmina seemed to have that real business instinct, not just in sales or anything like that,” said Sugar. “She’s innovative and understands the plot of where we’re going. It’s gut instinct, I can’t explain it.”
Men had a rough time of it in the 2009 series. Only James McQuillan managed to reach last week’s interview round, but he was fired along with Debra Barr and Lorraine Tighe.
Was Siadatan a worthy winner of “The Apprentice” and what does her and Walsh’s success on the show say about the supposed glass ceiling in business?
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4 comments so far
Thank you for the informative article.
- Posted by IsobelI believe that Yasmina had great qualities and was an all rounder. However I believe Kate was a clear winner. Her great consistency and buisness acumen made her my favourite. However I think that Kate will be successful in anything she did anyway. What does everyone else think?
Hands down this was for Kate. She will make a big scene soon enough.
- Posted by joseph lancasterKate was good but not as good as yasmin by a long shot. Ambition isn’t everything, she acted and looked like your average blonde essex girl that works in a beauty salon. Yasmina has already shown that she can successfully run a business and comes across as a much safe choice.
- Posted by CarolineAccording to the runner-up, Kate Walsh, Sir Alan Sugar wanted to hire her too but BBC red tape wouldn’t let him. Those nasty bureaucrats.
In the post-final review show, ‘You’re Fired’, Adrian Chiles interviewed Sir Alan about his decision, and about his thoughts on Kate. Now I don’t recall his exact words, but they were something like this:
‘Kate will be fine, I have no concerns about Kate, and I’ve given her my private email address and my phone number and told her that she can call me 24/7 if she needs any advice’
24/7? How nice for her. Honestly, Sir Alan, if you do want to give out your private contact details to young girls, don’t announce the fact on live national TV.
And don’t forget that Kate had a brief romance with one of the other contestants, just to make sure that she was the cat amongst the pigeons in the penthouse.
As Adrian Chiles says in his blog, “she wasn’t mourning for him once he’d left, was she?”.
So what does Kate get out of being runner-up? Maximum publicity, Sir Alan Sugar’s private email address and of course she doesn’t actually have to work for him (as the winner does). All of the benefits of being on the show with none of the downsides.
I’m not saying she threw it, just that every cloud has a sugared lining.
- Posted by Revelation