Claire Young Interview 2026

I spoke to Claire Young who was The Apprentice finalist back in 2008

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

We welcome to the podcast, Claire Young. How's it going?

SPEAKER_00 0:07

I'm great, thank you. Yeah, thanks for having me and asking me on.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

No problem. So um you were runner-up in The Apprentice back in 2008. What are your memories of the show and how was the process?

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Oh gosh, you know, 2008, in lots of ways, it feels like a lifetime ago. But when I sit down and watch The Apprentice, which I have which I do, and I hear the music, it's almost like it was yesterday. It was the most amazing experience. And I was actually talking about it a couple of days ago. I think in life, when you have huge chapters, so for me it was like school, university, work, the apprentice, children. It was a life-changing experience for me.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

And you still watch the show today, is that right?

SPEAKER_00 0:51

I still watch the show because I suppose I've got you know a great it's for me, the apprentice, it's a bit like bumping into my old best friend because it was such a fantastic experience that I yeah, I do watch the show. I wouldn't say religiously, every single week it's on catch-up, I'll pop it on and have a cup of tea. Um, and with there was a candidate this year, Andrea Cooper, who is from the same area as me in Yorkshire, so we have met. So I had a bit of a vested interest to um to watch it, but also for my business, which I started after The Apprentice, which is putting speakers into schools. I often watch the show thinking who, you know, is there anybody I can recruit from the show who I think would be good to go and speak to students?

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Oh, great. And um in the first task, you and your team were attempting to sell£600 worth of fish. What are your memories from the first task?

SPEAKER_00 1:46

The first task is chaotic because we started filming at for memory, it was about three, half past three in the morning, we got a phone call to say you're going in. And up until that point, you'd always gone into the house and met your can't the other candidates. But on for our series, they put us into the boardroom and said, and that was our first task, one of you won't unpack your bags, you'll be fired tonight. So if you stick your neck on the line and you've quit your job and you're going into the apprentice to be told that you're not even going to unpack your bags. So they usually do girls versus boys, which they did again, and I was the only person to put the hand up to be project manager, and we won. I can remember sort of at one point thinking, what have I done? Because it was it is so chaotic. I always try and explain to people that if somebody walks into a room and split you into a two teams, you probably sensible people would get on with it. But you've got to think who they recruit for the show, very strong personalities, everybody's confident, everybody's an egomaniac to a certain extent, everybody wants to lead, but they don't really want to lead, but they've got an opinion, and you throw in loads of cameras, the adrenaline is just crazy. So even a simple task like selling fish on a market can go out of control.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

And as you say, it's so many different personalities, isn't it? And you haven't even met really.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

I think in reality TV, after taking part in reality TV, and so much of our TV genre nowadays is reality TV. It is a little bit like a pantomime. They have a storyline to a certain extent, and they've got the characters. Reality TV only works if you engage with the characters, whether you like them, loathe them, have an opinion about them. If reality TV is boring, you don't connect to it, you don't tune in. It's why things such as in my opinion, like Love Island have become so boring because the candidates are so boring, they haven't got anything to say, so there's no hook to the show. But that's why you get great TV on The Apprentice because it's strong characters, and they basically don't let you sleep very much and put you on TV.

unknown 3:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

And in the second task, are you operated a laundry service? That looks surprisingly difficult.

SPEAKER_00 4:05

The laundry, I would have because I love running laundry at my house. I like things to be organized, process driven, and um I wasn't project manager for this for the next task. I sort of stepped back. But looking back, I wish I had been project manager because there was no system and we lost. It was a it was a it was a really good task, but it was hot. I remember the laundry was boiling hot and we worked all night. I can remember I kicked off my high heels and put on a pair of slippers which somebody kindly gave to me. And uh one of the ladies in the laundry.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

Is this the one where the boys steal the irons, or is this in another series? I'm just trying to remember now.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Yeah, I don't think they did.

SPEAKER_01 4:48

Maybe that was in another series.

SPEAKER_00 4:50

Yeah, I mean it's it was a car crash task because I can remember that all the items got mixed up and different people got different shirts back. And with The Apprentice, you have got to keep things simple and you've got to have a process, and you've got to listen, and you've got to work together as a team. But the early stages where there's loads of people and lots of adrenaline, people don't bother to read the task properly, they're all sort of darting off. Almost a bit like if you have a panic moment at home where you maybe might have lost your wallet or car keys, and that awful sort of that's what it's like being on the apprentice in those early on tasks because people don't tend to be very logical when there's so many emotions and adrenaline running through.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

Yeah, and there's so many people to begin with. You like you saying, does it get a bit easier when there's less people?

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Absolutely, it sounds awful, but once some people have beat gone the dead wood, that's awful. But it's true. Once you get down, say I think maybe we had 16 candidates, the final eight. It was, I mean, every day I was working with really brilliant people who were funny. I think my producer um got a BAFTA for our series of The Apprentice because it was so good and funny, but the it was a joy working with those people because we all had very similar qualities, I suppose. We all wanted to do well, we all were competitive, and everybody had a good sense of humour. It definitely gets easier as there's less people in the system.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

And and what was it like living in the house? Because obviously you don't know these people and you're just all thrown in together, aren't you?

SPEAKER_00 6:29

I think that's the hardest thing about being on the apprentice. Well, there's lots of hard things about being on the apprentice, but you are away from your sort of comfort blanket of home, you've got no mobile phone, no independence, you can't Google, um, you haven't got your little black book of contacts. There's so many people who are very confident in their world, but you take them out of their world, they just can't transfer skills. And having no time to yourself, because in the house, you I mean, we lived in a 20 million pound house, but we might as well just be living in bunk beds really because you're so tired when you come home, literally have a shower and go to bed, but you have no personal space, you share bedrooms, um, bathrooms are always busy. The only time you buy yourself is on the toilet, and you have a chaperone who waits for you on the other side of the door. So, as somebody who's quite extroverted like myself, but I like to have balance, I need to have a little bit of quiet time. I found that quite difficult that you literally get no time to yourself, really, apart from on the toilet or when you're asleep.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

Yeah, that does sound tough. And in the boardroom, what was that like? Was it a lot of hours?

SPEAKER_00 7:37

I don't think anything can prepare you for the boardroom. It's it's um a very surreal experience, and I started on the first day because it was what five o'clock in the morning, and then that night back after the task, getting the results, and it was straight into it. It's a bit surreal, it's like stepping inside a TV because you've got Alan Sugar and we have Margaret Mountford and Nick Mountford, um, Nick Hugh are sorry. Um, the boardroom, what people when you're in the process, you don't want to be in the boardroom because obviously you don't want to lose, but when it comes on TV, that's half of the TV show. And I found it a bit strange that when it came on TV, people were like, You're always on, you're always in the episode. But I'm like, that's because you brought me back into the boardroom. And actually, again, you need people who were gonna speak up in the apprentice because if they don't speak up, you haven't got a TV show. So I thrived in the boardroom, I'm quite happy with conflicts, but then once we walked out of that boardroom and we were going home, for me that was the boardroom, and going home, it was like right walking after dinner tonight, or you know, I need to go and get a shower. Whereas some people didn't have that ability to switch off, they sort of fested over the smallest things.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

Yeah, and I think sometimes when people win all the time and they don't go to the boardroom, they don't really get any sort of relationship with uh Alan, do they?

SPEAKER_00 9:00

No, you need we I spent a lot of time, I think I did maybe five boardrooms. I mean, he called me a rottweiler, he said she's clinging on to the ankles and she's not letting go. And that in business, you need that tenacious approach because I remember one boardroom I thought he was going to fire me, and I sort of gave my pitch and said, you know, in business, when it's good, it's easy, but when it's hard, you want people like me like no matter how bad my day has been, I will come back the next day and go again. And I think he he liked that's what being an entrepreneur is about having that tenacious resilience approach to carry on to keep on going, and he does get to know you in the boardrooms because you're in there for a long time.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

Yeah, and in the third task, you uh it was pub cuisine and you went for Indian food. It's amazing all the different things you have to do in The Apprentice, isn't it? All the different things.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Yeah, it's great. I mean, the diversity of the challenges. I mean, when you watch it as a viewer, I kept thinking, Am I good enough to go on this? Would I get picked? Is it as hard as it looked? And where in life would you have the opportunity to do all these things and really push yourself and see if you are capable of doing it? It's very easy from the comfort of your sofa, but it is a million times harder actually doing it.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

Yeah, as a viewer myself, I love the show, and um I'm always thinking, you know, I could do it so much better, but when you actually do it, I imagine it's a lot tougher than it looks.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Yeah, it's it is hard. Very it is hard, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

And in the fourth task, uh you headed over to Blue Water to run a pop-up photo uh photography business. You went for glamour and beauty, and it's fair to say it didn't go too well on that task.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

Yeah, that was we lost that task, and that was the boardroom where he said, You know what I'm gonna do with you, and I thought he's gonna find me. It was like, get out of my sight, get back to that house. It had well, one of the production came after me and said, We think he's had a bad day at work, you know. Are you okay? Because that was full on. But he said, You are talented, Claire, but you have got to learn to shut up. Now, a lot of people on The Apprentice, even though it's called The Apprentice, think they're perfect. And the fact was, I'd worked in business, but I'd never run my own business. And I had one of the country's most successful entrepreneurs saying, 'You're good, but you need to shut up and start listening.' Um, I think we finished filming at I don't know, midnight, and then we went went again at five in the morning. So you're filming back to back on very little sleep. And I was made project manager. We did ice cream for the next task and we won.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

And what was the flavour of the ice cream? Do you remember?

SPEAKER_00 11:38

We did alcoholic, like um pina cloud, um, hito, cosmopolitan. I remember it all those years ago. Yeah. Nice. And that was a great boardroom. That and I think from that point on, I sort of just really got my pace. If I was a racehorse, I was like heading towards the final line.

SPEAKER_01 11:57

Yeah, and I think um Lord Sugar said you changed through the process. Do you think you changed, or was that, you know, did did you really change?

SPEAKER_00 12:06

Absolutely, yeah. I did change because I think I'd always been in situations where um I describe it as a pouncer. So if I got a task to do, I would sort of pounce. I'd always want to be in control. I do find it easier, project managing and leading. And then once I sort of had confidence in the people around me, that it sounds off that they were capable. I was really happy to sort of step back and work as part of a team. I found it difficult early on because I didn't have confidence in some of them to lead us, and quite rightly so, we'd lose and then end up in the boardroom because I'd be saying, Well, actually, we shouldn't have done it that way because but they loved it because if again, you know, they'd be like, Here she comes, because you need somebody to speak and say how it is, because if not, you haven't got any TV show.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

Oh, yeah, exactly. I mean, I do find in sort of the earlier series of The Apprentice there was more characters as well. I do, I do think that.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

I think people have become, I think there's two reasons. I think people it's become quite contrived. People know every year there's gonna be a treasure hunt task, there's gonna be an overseas task, there's gonna be a QVC task. So they know to an element, you know what you're doing. But I think overall, they're sort of like next generation. I grew up with a little bit of social media, but not huge amount, was they are so image conscious that they really I don't think you see a lot of authentic um people because they are so aware of an image and what they've got to portray in social media and be popular and be liked. Whereas when we run it, people just like what you saw is what you got. Yeah, and people who apply for the apprentice, I always say just be yourself. You yes, maybe at the early on stages you can pretend to be somebody and put on a bit of a facade, but as the tiredness kicks in and you're missing home, you know, that it is exhausting being there. Um, the real you will appear, and that's what happens. You always see people starting to change as the process goes along.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Yeah, and in the sixth task, you made a new range of greeting cards. So both ideas from each team were a bit mad. An alternative to Valentine's Day for singles and an environmental card. Uh, what are your memories of this one?

SPEAKER_00 14:19

What an absolutely rubbish idea doing an environmental card which is completely contradictory to being environmental. I remember Jenny was the project manager. I would have done, I'm a massive animal lover, we've got dogs, um, cat, you know, we've got loads of animals. I would have done a range of um animals for uh sorry, a range of cards for pet owners, because there's a lot of people I've just seen with Mother's Day, you know, uh cat mum, dog mum, or um the other idea I had was people who've been in the services, you know, good luck, we're proud of you, coming home. You could have done some amazing creative on those cards, but you can't sort of railroad every task. Yeah, that was a dreadful task.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

It was dreadful. And I think the pitch for the environmental code was terrible as well because it was just making people feel sorry for the planet, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Um yeah, we were pitching to retail buyers, and that was my job. I was a retail buyer for superdrug, so that was my day job. I did it day in, day out. I'd worked in sales before as an account manager, pitching. I knew what retail buyers were looking for, but the account um the project manager Kevin was absolutely adamant that he was doing it and he was rubbish, yeah, it was rubbish. And Alan Sugar said, You should have let Claire do it. You've got to think in business with your brain and not your ego. And I remember Alan Sugar saying that to me. And actually, as I've left the apprentice and sort of moved through sort of growing up in business, he's completely right that you really so many people think with their egos and not the brain.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

And in the seventh task, you enter Marrakesh. This was one of my favourites of the series, uh, to try and obtain a list of 10 items. Was it fun going abroad for the task?

SPEAKER_00 16:07

It looks really exciting on camera, but it again, it's really tiring because you I think we landed at eight o'clock at night. We did the task all day the next day from like six in the morning till ten o'clock at night. We flew back the next morning, went straight to the boardroom.

SPEAKER_01 16:24

So you don't get much downtime.

SPEAKER_00 16:26

You get no downtime whatsoever. So it was good, it was chaotic, it was a true treasure hunt because obviously none of us knew Marrakesh in the soups, it was a crazy place. We had we landed back in the UK, went straight into the boardroom. Everybody was exhausted, and there was a double firing. I remember the double firing.

SPEAKER_01 16:47

I think at the end of the episode, you got this this clock, didn't you?

SPEAKER_00 16:51

Yeah, the green mosque alarm clock. I've still got it.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

Oh, have you? Well after all these years.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

I've still got my memory box of apprentice things, yeah, my green mosque alarm clock. So it was so specific, the items where they tell you the things you've got to get. And if you don't get the right item, you get a penalty. So oh, do you know what? I'm smiling because I'm thinking about it, and it was it was just funny. It's carnage. You've you know, flying through Marrakesh, they're like, Who are these crazy British people with cameras? So everywhere you go, you're just getting followed. I remember at one point there was like a man with a donkey and somebody with a snake, and it was chaos. Good though, but I remember it was very hot, and the crew work on alternate episodes, so they will do episode one, then have a rest, episode three, because carrying the kit is so heavy, and I remember in Marrakech we had to stop like every 20 minutes because it was so hot for them to like get a drink and it was boiling.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

Yeah, and I don't know if it was your team or the other team, but there was a huge error about buying a chicken and then having it blessed. Do you remember this?

SPEAKER_00 18:00

I remember it because Alan Sugar's Jewish, and Michael Sophocles and our team said it to all of us that he was Jewish. So, in the in this task, it was kosher chicken. He straight away said, I'll get it, I'll get it. And I was like, Great. Well, you're Jewish, so you know what you're looking for. So we went to the meat market, and I remember in the live chicken, I don't think they showed it on TV, a live chicken got thrown into a machine and chopped up for us, and as they were um it was getting chopped up, he was blessing it to Allah. And I off camera, I said on camera, I know we're in a Muslim country, so maybe Judaism is different here, but as far as I've got Jewish friends and I've been to the synagogue, Allah definitely is not in Judaism, but I'm not Jewish, so maybe I'm wrong. And then when we got it back to the boardroom, and Michael then changed that he was maybe Jewish, and Alan should go very funny enough, said why don't we pull your pants down and see? Which I burst out laughing. Um honestly, it bought the wrong kosher chicken.

SPEAKER_01 19:07

It it's well it was one of my top ten funniest moments, actually. Oh, it was so funny.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

And things like that don't happen anymore because I don't know, I don't know why people don't make those mistakes, but it was um oh, and another team, one of the other team tried to sabotage us as well, and oh god, it was yeah, it was chaotic, but people all the time still talk to me about the coach chicken task.

SPEAKER_01 19:31

Yeah, it's very memorable. I mean, you say people don't make those mistakes, but I was watching this series, uh the current one, and I couldn't believe it. On the first task, um, it was to get the 10 items, and each team only got like one item each, and I was dreadful.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

It was awful. And actually, I thought the first episode for first episode, because they went to Hong Kong, didn't they? I was surprised they went to Hong Kong because that's a lot of expense to fly all those people to Hong Kong. It's a long way to travel, that's hard work with how many people, 20 people. And actually, I thought it was a little bit boring because as a viewer, we want to see them, we want to see them getting some of the items, and the fact they were so late. I was, I think they were two hours late. You know, we were it was drilled into us constantly. Like, if you're five minutes late, you're out of the so at two hours late, I just thought you might as well just all go home, you're rubbish. But but recently and two hours late. That's terrible.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

Recently they redid it though, and they did a lot better. Um, what you would expect. But uh, yeah, the first episode it wasn't uh that spectacular. Uh but in the eighth task, you were selling wedding dresses and accessories at the National Exhibition Centre. Weddings are big business, aren't they?

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Yeah, and uh when we went out to the NEC, one of the managers for the NEC came to the stand and said to me, Have you done this before? Because I was I think I I just threw myself into every task. Um I was like, No, I've never sold wedding dresses before, but I'm a believer if you are passionate about what you're selling, people buy from people. And we had the most amazing wedding dresses by um a designer called Ian Stewart. We went for high-end dresses, I can't remember how many we sold, five, and we literally smashed that task. So our high-end item was the dresses for like, I don't know, five grand, and the accessory was personalised wedding knickers, which were really popular to have your name on. Um, it was such a good task. It was brilliant. We loved it, yeah, really good.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

Yeah, that did look like a lot of fun, actually. That one.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

Yeah, loved it. And actually, Rafe, who was on the show, who's like the poshiest person I've ever met, he had never really been out of London in this country. And in Birmingham, he had no idea what people were saying. He literally could not understand what people were saying. He'd been to like the Bahamas or Barbados in London. So we put him in a teddy bear suit and just got him to like walk around because he couldn't really do very much on that task. But no, it was a really good um it was a good sales task. Anything with selling I was always really happy to do.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

Great. And in the ninth task, you had to design your own tissues with an advertising campaign and you also had to pitch to industry experts. What was that like?

SPEAKER_00 22:21

As tasks go, I think that was quite boring because it's not very sexy, is it branding a box of tissues?

SPEAKER_01 22:27

No.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

And we were as a cre as a creative task as well again, I sound like a broken record. We were so tired because I think we finished filming at like I don't know 10 or 11 that night before up again the next morning our project manager was Michael who the Jewish candidate Alan Sugar was like right I'm going to make you a project manager. He was so tired he couldn't even think and it was just we had Sean Jenkins who read the weather at that point she came to do the video and Rafe and Michael got really carried away the very thespian almost being quite Shakespeare like and when I actually watched the video I said there's no tissues in it. You need some product placement Alan Sugary is going to be saying where's the bloody tissues because that's what um and then when we're in the boardroom he was like where's the bloody tissues so yeah and I think from memory Rafe got fired.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

And it was um it's one of them examples on The Apprentice where one team does one thing and the other team does the other because the other team's advert was terrible as well and it was always talking about antibacterial tissues but you needed that and you had to see the image of what they were whereas your team didn't have any of that but it's quite interesting how teams sometimes go in totally different opposite directions.

SPEAKER_00 23:42

Yeah we should have looking back like it's very easy with the apprentice in hindsight we should have gone for families children and done like a superhero like Mr Antiback to the rescue or something like that for kids. Again I wasn't project manager and we were all really really tired.

SPEAKER_01 24:00

I I felt sorry for production on that task because we were all shattered I did actually prefer your advert though I know it wasn't right and I understand why you lost because it wasn't in there but at least there was a little bit of a story.

SPEAKER_00 24:13

They went they went too far though like you said yeah totally I can't remember was it a car task afterwards?

SPEAKER_01 24:21

Yeah but yeah we were going to speak about that you're selling high-end cars renting them out what was that do you remember that one?

SPEAKER_00 24:27

Yeah so it was my birthday that morning and I don't know what what made me say it I said I don't mind what we're doing today as long as we're not selling cars what are the chances and we got taken to a scrap metal yards and because they put you in random places before they set you the task I thought what is this um and then we had the massive engine drawing and this fleet of amazing supercars came in and they said you will be selling cars so we decided as a team to pick the super um rare ones like I still remember them Spiker Sonder because we knew that we were going to be selling in the city of London and after living in London and being in the city a lot of people have Ferraris, Aston Martins they're sort of like a Ford focus to a lot of the city boys and girls so we went for these sort of very niche cars where you can't buy them we lost that task but from memory I was the top salesperson so I was safe and I can't remember who got fired on that it might have been Michael. Yeah Michael did um because that was quite funny um he he had a Ferrari to rent I think and um he he was getting a bit desperate because he followed this guy up the road and it didn't look like he was going to leave him it was quite funny yeah we are we were like relentless on I would say every single day when we filmed we all laughed about something and production would be laughing and then we'd all like remember on a TV show and you get so immersed in the task you almost forgot you were filming a show honestly because you were just so in the zone doing it. Then it was interviews yeah the interviews I was going to ask about that what was that like I mean is it as brutal is it as crazy as it looks on TV I don't think I featured very much on the interview episode because by that point I felt like I'd literally given my heart body and soul to this experience and I was a bit like if you don't like me I literally cannot do anything more and I had really good interviews so it's funny how sort of like things work out but I'd been reading a magazine article about Karen Brady and when I walked into one of the interview rooms that was her first year involved with the show so we had no idea um and I knew everything about her like she was a business role model to me I knew all about Birmingham City and she after the interview stage said Alan if you don't hire her I will and she did offer me a job she was true to her words and so I actually really enjoyed the interview day but what people sort of don't forget is that if you lie on your application form it's probably going to get called out on national TV like Lee McQueen was you can't lie about things because they will check in the final five they interviewed my friends family and spoke to my previous employment places to make sure what I said was true.

SPEAKER_01 27:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

So if anyone's watching this yeah an appliance got the apprentice don't lie she'll get found out it may get you on the show but then eventually if you get far enough yeah you'll get found out and when Lee went on to win the show his headline I remember wasn't you're hired it was like you're liard because he'd lied about having H and D and um in the final you had to design a new male fragrance what were your memories of this one? Oh well my since leaving university I'd worked in the FMCG sector which is fast moving consumer goods and I'd worked specifically in health and beauty so I had eight years experience of beauty um branding and production said they set those tasks before the candidates are even known and they didn't say dumb yourself down but they were like can you sort of just not be like as as good as what you are because it looks a bit obvious and it's really hard to sort of pretend to be something you're not so Lee and I we got put together we worked as a team because for the first time Alan couldn't decide between in the final between four of us so he put us into pairs so Lee McQueen and I went on to win the final and then out of that Lee went on to win the show. I might be wrong but I think that's the only time they did that yeah seems like it and behind the scenes um I'm doing like this I've got a little dog down here looking at me um behind the scenes he took us out for dinner the final five we had a night out in London with him and he's never done that before never done it since nice and we had a really good time with him no cameras do you remember the treats um because they used to do them back then what was your favourite so our filming schedule was um well we didn't know this I wrote it down so I worked it out we had Monday Tuesday filming so they were like 20 hour days um Wednesday was boardroom and the boardroom you see is like 30 minutes it in reality can take like four to six hours by the time you've done all the filming so if you went on a Wednesday your treat was out of London on a Thursday so we went on a helicopter for example to Bowwood House in Wiltshire which was amazing and then we did uh work Friday Saturday Sunday morning boardroom Sunday afternoon London treat so we did a spa day in London they've stopped doing them now I don't know whether it's cost or whether people have said that actually when you're on a treat it's not really a treat because you're still filming the real treat if you're on a losing team like I was you had that afternoon to yourself or when everybody you just go to the park or with somebody but you had a little bit of downtime so that was actually really nice.

SPEAKER_01 30:17

As a viewer though I did think it was better when they had the treats in terms of what you would see the winning team would get up to afterwards.

SPEAKER_00 30:23

Yeah and it was fun as well we had some really good treats really good the first uh treat was Jean Christophe Novelli famous celebrity chef came in and made us dinner we had a dinner party I mean how cool is that yeah and very very different as well things that you you you wouldn't do every day. Exactly the whole point of going on the apprentice is for those you know well it's once in a lifetime experience I always find it nice talking to other people who have been through the apprentice because we're almost like an apprentice alumni we know we know what what it's been like. Yeah and of course you did very well to reach the final um but it must have been hard at the time um to finish runner up how hard was it I think it's like the two the two sides of a coin because I think as a competitive person and I do feel that I probably earned it more than Lee in the respect that I did so many boardrooms Lee didn't go into a single boardroom ever I felt like I'd really earned earned it but for me I came out for the apprentice I know it sounds really cheesy but often it's not the winning it's the opportunity and I had so many opportunities open to me I mean being in the public eye um learning all about public relations working with the government on so many campaigns I've done with them around young people women in business starting my business I actually I like being in control so I think it was the right thing for me that I was in control of my destiny so to speak um but I think you know as a it as a competitive person you do want to win but coming second there were still loads of opportunities open for me so it didn't sort of like feel that bad. And I think Alan Sugar did say I'm not worried about Claire she's gonna be fine and she's always got my my help and true to this you know day I'm still in contact with his office and um yeah so that's good. Yeah that's good to do it worked out it worked out the best thing for sounds really naff but we were all really happy for each other like Lee was happy for me and I was happy for him.

SPEAKER_01 32:37

And it's nice to hear that about because you see it on the TV show but obviously you don't know if that's true, genuine but uh as we've heard it from many people it must be yeah yeah it's um it's just it's such a once in a lifetime experience that I feel very lucky that I did it with people who were still friends.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

So when we had our 10 year reunion which we organized I saw those people and um we all went out for dinner in London. It's just and it was interesting funny because we all sort of fell into the same roles as what we normally are um yeah I we all genuinely not all of us but like a core maybe 10 12 of us enjoy each other's company.

SPEAKER_01 33:17

Nice. And we've got five minutes to go tell us what you do in the business world today.

SPEAKER_00 33:22

So when I went left The Apprentice um Alan had said to me don't take any sort of don't make any decisions or take any job offers for the next three to six months and just see what comes through and I was asked by a lot of schools to go visit them. I'd not been back into my school since I left school and I just I remember the first school I went to in Blackpool called Unity College and went in speak to a group of girls about my career pathway and what I'd do. It sort of blew their brains that a young woman could work and sort of be in the business world. And I sort of started doing more and more speaking in schools and then spotted a gap in the market to put speakers into schools and colleges and universities and from working with Alan I'd learned to keep it simple so I called it school speakers and what nearly 20 years down the line it's an award winning business and we work with schools all over well all over the world so that's what we do got 600 speakers. Wow yeah so so obviously that was a gap in the market like you say they didn't have those facilities they were so schools were using speakers but they were there wasn't anywhere which had them like under one umbrella so you had to find them through friends or contacts or LinkedIn or searching whereas there were lots of people putting speakers into the corporate market for loads of events but nobody I think if I'm being honest couldn't be bothered with schools there's almost a bit of a fear sometimes for schools because it is different working in education versus corporates and sort of blue chip businesses but I really love I love going to work I love what I do for a living and I know that the impact my speakers have on the audience like literally like is changing their lives that's great to hear and do you regret anything you did on the show all these years later no I no and people ask me about it. I um no not at all and the edit and people often say you know about the edit and for me it was absolutely fair. I thought and I think for all of us if people have edited to look stupid I'm like they can only make you look stupid if you are stupid and you do stupid things I was I mean they do say for every episode they have about 600 hours of footage because people forget teams following you but I was completely I wouldn't change a single thing. I'd love to go back and do it all again.

SPEAKER_01 35:51

That's great to hear that I mean as a viewer I'd love to do it just like you say for the experience not necessarily thinking about winning it um but yeah it is it does seem amazing.

SPEAKER_00 36:01

When I came out and I went back to my house my next door neighbour in London I told very few people but she'd looked after my property and when I saw her I burst into tears and said I just don't really know what I've just been through I've honestly felt like somebody had like pulled my head open got my brain pulled it apart and then shoved me back out and it made me really think actually what we achieved in filming in five weeks the whole series in five weeks that actually you can achieve an awful lot in life if you really sort of focus on it and get on with it.

SPEAKER_01 36:32

Well thanks a lot for joining us on the podcast Claire it's been lovely to speak to you.

SPEAKER_00 36:36

Oh thank you ever so much and yeah pleasure thank you