List of The Apprentice candidates (UK series two)

The following is a list of candidates from the British reality television series The Apprentice.

Candidates are listed alphabetically by series; individual candidate information is accessed by clicking on their name below.

Where a date of birth is not provided, the age given is as of the time the relevant series aired.

Main article: The Apprentice (UK series two)

Syed Ahmed

Main article: Syed Ahmed (businessman)

Syed Ahmed (born 17 September 1974, Bangladesh) is an entrepreneur and a former restaurant manager. His family moved to London at an early age and he grew up in East London. He came close to being fired in week 4 after overspending on ingredients in the catering task, but later impressed Sir Alan by successfully negotiating a large sale of fuel cans in week 8. He was dismissed in week 10 in his fifth appearance in the boardroom.

Nargis Ara

Nargis Ara (born 1967, Bangladesh) has an honours degree in pharmacy and is a PhD student. She was the most highly educated of all the contestants, although her experience lay mainly in pharmaceutical research. She was fired in week 2 after deciding to use cats as the theme for a children's charity calendar and displaying poor sales skills during the task. It has since been revealed by contestant Alexa Tilley that the team were given no choice in this matter, a fact that was not revealed to the television audience.

Ruth Badger

Main article: Ruth Badger

Ruth Badger (born 1978) had previously been employed as a Sales Manager and a senior management executive for Compass Finance prior to appearing on the Apprentice. She implied that she had only 3 GCSEs (in week 11 she stated that she and Michelle had 5 GCSEs and no degrees between them). Badger was on the losing team for 7 of the 10 tasks. She eventually finished as the runner-up, reaching the final. Since her appearance, Badger has presented her own programme called Badger or Bust.

Karen Bremner

Karen Bremner (born 6 November 1971, Canada) obtained a diploma in legal practice and a Bachelor of Laws degree and was previously employed as a lawyer. She won as project manager in the first week, but Sir Alan unexpectedly dismissed her in Episode 3, telling her "I don't need another corporate lawyer." In all other series of the Apprentice, the winning project manager has survived until at least Week 8. Bremner had a number of radio and television appearances and was the business correspondent for Scottish talk radio station Talk107. Bremner now owns a boutique, karenB, based in Broughty Ferry in Scotland, for which she has won a Young Entrepreneurial Company of the Year award.

Jo Cameron

Jo Cameron is a BBC Radio Presenter and presents a regular breakfast show on Coventry based radio station RadioPlus. She has been an entrepreneur since 2004 when she became a Management Consultant and Trainer specialising in improving the position of women in male-dominated industries. Prior to this she held several senior Managements positions in the Motor Industry in HR, Sales and Communications. She has a master's degree in Human Resource Management (achieving a distinction and the course prize) and a Degree in Engineering, both from Coventry University. She has taught on MBA programmes and spoken at conferences across Europe. She is also a regular media commentator. On The Apprentice she became known for her passionate approach, her laugh and for surviving several final boardrooms. She was ultimately fired in Week 6, ironically on a car-selling task. In 2008, she was the winner of a special charity edition of The Weakest Link, featuring previous candidates of The Apprentice. She beat Series 3 candidate Kristina Grimes in the final round, after only one question was answered correctly between the two of them, winning £11000 for charity. Her first baby Emmeline was born prematurely in 2006 and died a few hours later, leaving her totally devastated. She is now an active campaigner raising awareness of Stillbirth and Neo-natal deaths as patron of the Charity SANDS. She gave birth to a healthy baby girl called Georgia in 2009 and now runs the Achievers Academy for Women.

Michelle Dewberry

Main article: Michelle Dewberry

Michelle Dewberry has two GCSEs as well as professional qualifications. She currently lives in London but her roots are in Hull. From her first job working the checkouts in Kwik Save, she rose through the business ranks in various firms to become a global project manager. She claimed to already earn the £100,000 salary offered by the show from her consultancy in telecommunications offshoring, and said that she wanted to become Sir Alan's apprentice for the experience rather than the money.

Dewberry went on to win the series, beating rival Ruth Badger in the final. Dewberry's first assignment for Sir Alan was to launch Xenon Green, a business that disposes of unwanted computer equipment. However, she and Sir Alan parted company in September 2006.

She had a romantic relationship with fellow contestant Syed Ahmed and became pregnant by him. In August 2006 they lost the baby, who died before birth.

Ansell Henry

Ansell Henry left school at the age of 16 to join Millwall F.C. and was on their books as a professional footballer. However, injury cut short his career and he found employment as a door-to-door salesman. He was born in South London but currently lives in Brighton. He described a good all-rounder and who gets on well with people. As one of the least educated contestants he joined the competition for a challenge. On the show Ansell gained a reputation as a "nice guy", reaching the final three before being dismissed. In the final he was selected by Ruth Badger to be on her team.

Samuel Judah

Samuel Judah has a degree in manufacturing engineering and his previous employment was as a Product Innovation Manager at Ford Motor Company. Before appearing on The Apprentice he spent 11 years at Ford Motor Company in Engineering, Manufacturing and Business Strategy. He was brought back into the boardroom for the first task but later won as project manager the following week. He was dismissed in the seventh week of the process.

Tuan Le

Tuan Le (generally pronounced /dʊn/, duun) was born 11 January 1979. He has 9 GCSEs and 2 A Levels, and before the show worked as a financial advisor. He had previously worked for the Nationwide Building Society, eventually becoming a financial consultant, and as a lacer for Clarks Shoes.

Sharon McAllister

Sharon McAllister was born in Banchory, Scotland in 1975 and attended Banchory Primary School. She graduated from Robert Gordon University where she studied Corporate Communications. In 2001 Sharon McAllister set up a company called Scottish Baby Gifts which included Scottish baby clothes and christening presents. On 5 March 2008 Sharon launched sit1.tv, Scotland's first Internet television station. McAllister is known around the Edinburgh community area for once dating local celebrity and D.J. Turntable Thomas. Sharon is a regular wearer of leather clothes. She will often be seen sporting a pair of leather trousers or knee length leather skirts.

Mani Sandher

Mani Sandher has a BSc in physics and was previously employed as a management consultant. He lives in London and admits that he "can be a perfectionist". He has set up two profitable businesses although he is now a silent partner in one of them.

Mani came off as being arrogant and confrontational accusing contestant Syed Ahmed in Week 2 of not trusting him in carrying out market research and on the morning of the pitch refusing to explain the changes to the pitch saying "I can't be bothered to explain it to you." In spite of bringing Invicta to victory alongside Project manager Samuel Judah the pitches were criticised on Worst Decisions Ever by Michelle Mone as "awful". Sir Alan's aide Margaret Mountford described his pitch as "becoming tearful about the charity that the calendar is promoting". Sandher later led Velocity to victory in Week 4 despite not getting on with other members of his team but his team won due to project manager of Invicta Alexa Tilley, despite taking the role of Project manager, showing no leadership and allowing fellow members Syed and Tuan Le take over the task. Despite his claim that "he hasn't been fired from anywhere." Sir Alan described him as going from "anchor to wanker" and fired him in Week Five.

At the time of his Apprentice appearance, Sandher was 39, making him the joint oldest contestant ever on the UK show, with Matthew Palmer from Series 1. This record was later broken by Jaz Ampaw-Farr from series 9, who was 41 and eventually by Ruth Whiteley from Series 11, who was 47.

Ben Stanberry

Ben Stanberry was educated at the Salesian College in Hampshire, has bachelor's and master's degrees in law and worked previously as an academic at Cardiff University and as a management consultant. Prior to appearing on the show, Ben had successfully battled advanced colorectal cancer, from which he'd been given only a 30% chance of survival. After appearing on the show he went on to become the commercial and legal director of a healthcare company and was elected as a Conservative councillor, representing Barnes in the London Borough of Richmond-upon-Thames. He is presently studying for an Executive MBA at the world-ranked Henley Business School alongside Series Four finalist Helene Speight.

Alexa Tilley

Alexa Tilley was born in London on 22 September 1977 and prior to the show was a management consultant. She entered the contest for the business opportunity and the chance to learn from Alan Sugar. Alexa has a BA in economics from Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge. Alexa was fired in Week 4 after her team's disastrous performance in the catering task. After she was fired, it was revealed on the You're Fired! episode that her cousin is Matt Lucas, and they know each other very well.

Alexa currently works as a management consultant at Towers Watson in the UK. Since appearing on The Apprentice, she has appeared on an episode of Weakest Link, where she famously took a very long time on a question, before passing. In 2012 she was invited back for a 'Most Embarrassing Answers' special, where she was voted off in the third round.

Paul Tulip

Paul Tulip (born 1 October 1979) has a degree in business and sport and had a career as a head hunter at Burns Carlton.

“Polyester Paul's” got through to the interview stage, winning seven of the ten tasks he was involved in (more than anyone else that series) and was the only person in the second series to both win two tasks as project manager. He was the only candidate in the series to have never been brought back into the boardroom during the tasks (the only other contestant in the show's history to do so was Series 4 winner Lee McQueen). Despite this, Paul did not fare well in the interview rounds and was described as "arrogant" and "cocky" by the interviewers. When the decision came to decide who to put through to the final, Sir Alan fired Paul early on in the session.