The Apprentice signs up three more candidates – including a social care expert, shed builder and a martial arts champ
THE Apprentice has signed up three new lads with hopes of becoming Lord Sugar’s latest business partner.
Social care expert Simba Rwambiwa, luxury shed seller Brad Johnson and martial artist Sohail Chowdhary are among the 18 candidates vying for a huge £250,000 investment.
Savvy Simba founded Palmlove Care which he describes as a service “helping people to stay independent in the comfort of their own homes”.
It’s currently going through a rebrand that he will be hoping involves Lord Sugar.
Teesside lad Brad is the managing director of gardenroooms.co.uk, which provides creates luxury outbuildings for clients.
Finally, Southampton-based Sohail is the founder of agmartialarts.co.uk, a gym and kickboxing school.
Earlier today Lord Sugar revealed a major twist in the first look at the return of The Apprentice.
The 2023 series makes a big statement in episode one with the new cast carrying out tasks on the paradise island of Antigua & Barbuda.
The 18 entrepreneurs are seen walking past luxury accommodation and boarding a catamaran moored in turquoise waters.
There’s also a shot of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai suggesting a jaunt in the Middle East too.
Narrating the teaser clip is Lord Sugar himself, who says: “It’s the opportunity of a lifetime. The world’s now open for business. We’re kicking things off with the ultimate task. One of you will be gone before your postcards get back.”
It suggests a savage firing lies ahead for one unlucky hopeful.
The Apprentice is fast becoming better known for its wannabes’ fame-hungry ambition than their business skills.
Some of the contestants who will be on the next series look like they would be more suited to the Love Island villa than the boardroom.
Some have massive social media followings, while one has a lengthy CV of TV work, making this year’s intake a far cry from the show’s original aim at its start in 2005 to champion unknowns.
An internet search quickly reveals that confectionary firm boss Victoria Goulbourne, who appears to be more at home in a bikini than in a business suit, already has more than 12,000 Instagram followers.
Last month a TikTok clip of her glamorous holiday in Bali getting ruined by a muddy swamp was viewed 29.6million times.
Glamorous hair salon owner Dani Donovan often poses in her swimwear.
Reece Donnelly, who runs a theatre school, has been in TV shows since he was a kid, as well as appearing in a telly ad for phone network T-Mobile.
He might be able to give a few tips to Avi Sharma, who quit a career in banking to pick up presenting and hosting jobs.
The most recent series of The Apprentice had three contestants who had all featured on reality TV shows.
Pharmacist Navid Sole starred on Channel 5 show Rich Kids Go Skint, ITV’s Judge Rinder and BBC Three series Eating With My Ex, while pyjama store owner Kathryn Burn was on Channel 4’s The Island With Bear Grylls in 2017.
And American beauty entrepreneur Amy Anzel first found fame on the first series of US dating show The Bachelor in 2002.
In 2011 Lord Sugar, who is worth an estimated £1.2billion, said he wanted to ban fame-hungry wannabes from his show.
He maintained last year he stood by the ban, saying: “If anybody has appeared somewhere before on a television programme, and it had been scrutinised in the auditioning process by the BBC, and if they’ve accepted it, it’s most probably because their appearance was incidental or not of significance.”
The next series of The Apprentice, which begins next month, features 18 entrepreneurs competing for a £250,000 investment under the watchful eyes of Baroness Karren Brady and Tim Campbell MBE.
Tasks include selling day-trips to tourists in Antigua, creating cartoon characters and flogging street food.
The first episode of last year’s series, won by dessert shop owner Harpreet Kaur, peaked at 8.9million — the highest since the 2017 final.