Karren Brady discusses The Apprentice 2024 in brand new Interview

January 23, 2024

The 2024 cohort for The Apprentice has been announced.

The Apprentice is back, fronted by business tycoon Lord Sugar alongside his trusted advisors Baroness Karren Brady and Tim Campbell MBE.

The series returns with 18 candidates and brand-new tasks, where we’ll see the hopeful business candidates battle it out for the opportunity of a lifetime for Lord Sugar’s £250,000 investment and mentorship.

Baroness Karren Brady

The Apprentice is back for its 18th series and still going strong, why do you think it’s still so popular after all these years?

It’s been going such a long time, lots of shows that are much loved become less loved as the series goes on, but this tends to build more and more momentum, so we’re really pleased about that.

I think it’s a number of things. Firstly, it’s authentic. Alan is one of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs, and he lives for business, and does a lot in business that’s very well respected. There’s no one like him. I think he brings a level of authenticity that is not about fame or anything, it is genuinely about helping people start-up businesses. I think because it’s so authentic, people love that. The second thing is, it’s a format that’s easy to understand. He sets the task, they go out, they do it, there’s a winner, and on the losing team, someone gets fired. It is a formula that people are used to.

People love business in this country. They love seeing how people do business, how people react to difficult situations, their thought process. It’s one of those ones where you’re either hiding behind the sofa, or with your head in your hands, or like me rolling your eyes, or you’re genuinely rooting them on because they’ve done something great. I think that people like to see the journey the candidates go through. They start big, bold, brash, impossible types, to becoming quite likeable, learning a lot, toning down, fitting in, doing good stuff. I think they quite like that.

And then I think the most important thing in some respects is the prize. If you have an ambition to set up your own business, it’s the best prize you can get. You not only get a quarter of a million pounds to start it up, but the most important thing you get is a partnership and mentorship from one of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs. And they’ve seen genuine success from previous winners who’ve gone on to run these huge companies, employing hundreds of people, changing their life, becoming millionaires. It works. It’s a tough process, and I think people like that it’s tough and varied. They like to see the mistakes, but also the successes candidates have, and they like to see a winner go on and do particularly well. I think that’s the formula for success.

The show is hugely popular with the 16-34 age range, why do you think that is?

I think young people want to get ahead. I think we are a great country of entrepreneurs and freethinkers. I think at that age you have the aspiration to run your own business, be an entrepreneur, be successful, earn money, do great things, do something different, show what you can do. I think they like to watch it because they like to learn something, they like to be inspired, they like to see how it’s done, they like to see how it’s not done. I get so many young people come up to me and say they watch it religiously. And if you think about how long it’s been going, if you started watching it at 16, you’re now in your thirties, so you’ve sort of grown up with it.

What can you tease about this year’s candidates?

I think it’s probably the most highly qualified set of candidates we’ve ever had. Pharmacist, dentist, some already successful business owners. I think from that point of view, the standard is really very high, but with high standard and high achievers comes high ego! They think they’re really, really, really, really good. And like most entrepreneurs and highly successful people, they often think they’re the best in the room, and working as a team can prove very challenging for some people. Entrepreneurs are used to being in charge, making the decision, doing things quickly, the way they want, how they want, when they want. And suddenly when you’re surrounded by ten other people, it becomes a lot more difficult to do that. All of them think they should be the boss, all of them think they should have the final say. It just becomes more and more difficult. It’s a high level of candidates this year.

What do you think candidates need to do to stand out?

Well, I think what they shouldn’t do is hide. Alan doesn’t like anybody to hide, and it always amazes me. I would want to be project manager for every task, because it’s an opportunity to show what you can do, and you want to be able to show what you can do to secure the investment. If you hide at the back of the room with no opinions and just go with the flow, if you can’t value your own opinions, why should anybody else? I think hiding is not a great place to be. He always spots the one who’s hiding in the background, stuck in the kitchen, filling the bags with stuff, and he’s not keen on that.

But I think what you should do is you should put people in their strengths. Don’t play a political game, play a straight game. Be really clear about what you want. What often happens is, in some of these tasks, it all goes wrong in the brainstorm. They have an opportunity in the brainstorm to pick their target market, pick their brand ethos, for whatever task it is, pick their pricing structure and everything else. If project manager doesn’t leave everybody clear on who’s doing what, where they’re going, what their ultimate goal is, they end up going in different directions, and the results can be devastating, it can often end up in a loss. I think being really clear, being very communicative, talking to everybody, getting people’s opinions, but being able to make a decision.

I mean, far too often in this series we saw project managers come up with a very clear idea, and then get swayed and taken off their course, get persuaded into changing their mind, changing their course, changing their idea, and then it gets filtered out. And in life, if you try and please everybody, you end up pleasing nobody. You have to be really clear about what ideas you’ll take on board and which ones you won’t, that prevents a lot of time-wasting.

You and Tim are Lord Sugar’s eyes and ears on the show. At the beginning of a series does he tell you what he’s looking for?

He doesn’t, no. At the beginning, it starts with the fact that everybody has a business plan, even though we haven’t seen them, a business plan or a business idea that’s backable. That’s the first premise. Alan has got very many diverse businesses, so he’s not looking for anything particular. I’m sure he didn’t think he’d be in the sweet business or the Botox business or the plumbing business or many other businesses. He’s not looking for anything specific.

Like most investors, you’re looking at the person. You’re looking at, what kind of person can you work with? Who’s investible? Who has values and purpose that you believe in? Who has integrity and can get on with a team? It starts with the fact that everyone has a backable business. And through the tasks, what he’s testing is, if I give you the money, can you market a business? Can you get on with people? Can you present? Can you innovate? Can you solve problems? Can you sell? Can you negotiate? Can you do marketing? Every task is set to test that, at the end of it, they’ve learned something or know something or done something that says that, if they get the money, they can actually run their business.

How important are first impressions to you and also to Lord Sugar because the candidates often make bold statements at the start?

I think if that was the case, a few of them would not have won over the years, because some of them come in with the most outlandish statements, and even they realise it’s a ridiculous claim to make, and they turn it around. But the show attracts the kind of person that is not shy, who really does genuinely believe in themselves. And that’s part and parcel of being an entrepreneur. You spot an idea or a gap in the market no-one else has, and you have the ability to back yourself to go after your aim. I mean, every great innovation, every great business, every idea started from a simple belief that it could be done. You do need to have self-belief. And some of them do take it a bit far! I think there’s the first one, the doctor, who says he’s got all the three B’s, brains, beauty, and business sense. And Alan added “bullshit”, you do squint a bit and think, “Really?” But we don’t hold it against them!

This series there are tasks involving electric cars, vegan cheese and a virtual escape room. Do you think that’s important to reflect changing markets?

Yeah. I think it’s really important to the audience, which is predominantly 16 to 34, that they are thinking about businesses they might go into, and businesses that they know of and understand. The show has evolved. I mean, some of these ideas, virtual escape rooms, were not in existence when this show started. I don’t know how popular vegan cheese was when this started. Formula E certainly hadn’t started. It’s important to evolve the businesses in the way people are thinking about, and the areas that people are thinking about starting up businesses.

You keep a close eye on them during tasks, what are you looking out for?

Well, first thing I always say to them, “I’m not here, so I can’t help you, I can’t advise you, I can’t prompt you, you can’t ask me any questions. I’m literally not here.” I say, “Alan doesn’t want to know if I can do this task. He wants to know if you can do this task.” And my job and Tim’s job is really very simple. It’s to keep them honest in the boardroom. For them to take accountability of the decisions they help make, and if they say, “It wasn’t my decision,” our job is to say, “Well, actually it was your decision,” or, “You’re right, it wasn’t your decision.” And also, to tell Alan who’s excelled, who’s let the team down, who’s been difficult to work with, who’s been good to work with, who’s turned it around, who’s taken it off the rails. Our job is really simple. We just have a lot of notes, and we share them as we go, and just keep them honest in the boardroom, so he gets a genuine understanding of what happened because obviously he doesn’t see the tasks. He won’t see the tasks until the show’s finished. He relies on us to tell him who did what, who’s accountable for what, the good and the bad.

You say you don’t get involved, but do the candidates try and ask for your help anyway?

We’re really very, very clear that we’re not there, and we’re not part and parcel of the task, and we shouldn’t be involved. There’ll be times where I’ll step in, but only because there’s an issue that needs to be dealt with there and then, otherwise I try very hard not to.

Does it surprise you how brutal the candidates can be with each other in the boardroom?

No! Because trust me, when they all turn up to the first boardroom, all of them want to win. They want nothing more than to win. They want to change their life, they want to be successful, they want to be that entrepreneur that’s running their own business, in charge of their own life, on their way to being a millionaire, being successful. They are as ruthless as they feel they need to be.

Do you like that they are feisty in the boardroom and show character?

Well, look, like anything in life, if you don’t stand up for yourself, no-one will stand up for you. And if you’re looking to get a partnership with one of the world’s most successful people and a quarter of a million pounds, you’ve got to stand by your opinions, and you’ve got to be able to articulate why you shouldn’t be fired and what you’ve done that contributed to the success rather than the failure. It is important that you stand up for yourself, but it’s also important to watch your tone. None of us like to have a tone that is disrespectful, or particularly disrespectful to your colleagues. It’s okay to stand up for yourself, but we wouldn’t tolerate bullying or disrespect in the boardroom.

The boardroom is tense, but do you have fun at all?

We don’t have a laugh, no. It’s very serious. It’s just like any other boardroom meeting you would have. If you’re there, you’re there for a purpose, you talk about the issues that you have. There’s no time to have fun.

We go in, the first part, Boardroom one, as we call it, is who did what on the task, who won, and who lost. And then the winning team go off and have their treat, and the losing team go to the cafe to discuss what went wrong. Then they come back in, and at that second part, the project manager brings two people back, and then in the final part, someone’s fired. There’s not big gaps between everything, and it rolls into one, and we’re all very, very focused on what’s happening and why it’s happened and what the issues are.

And it’s for Alan to go through what he thinks went wrong, and for them to explain what part they had in it.

Is it hard to find the balance between entertainment and authenticity?

I think the entertainment comes through the task, and then it gets more serious, right to the final most serious bit when you get the finger, and you’re fired. It starts fun, and the pressure builds up right to the end.

For women in business what would your key advice be?

Confidence is absolutely key, and trusting your abilities is very important. I think confidence is not about what you have or haven’t got in life, it’s about knowing one thing, that you back yourself to turn things around when things aren’t going your way. I would say lifelong learning is important, to stay up to date with trends, to be well read, whether that’s through formal or informal education, online courses, always looking at ways to improve your skills and your knowledge.

I think it’s also important to build your support network and system, mentors, advisors, networking with like-minded individuals. To develop resilience. Before success, you’ll get temporary defeat, sometimes total failure, and it’s what you do when that happens. As I said, every business starts with an idea it can be done. And on that path to success, there’s ups and downs, and those setbacks and challenges build resilience, show that you’ve got a backbone, and you can use it and put one foot in front of the other.

I think you have to embrace risk. You never really know how good you are until you try something, so you have to step out your comfort zone. You have to try new things, you have to be a good communicator, and you’ve got to have clear goals.

You mentioned risk there. Do you think that’s what stands entrepreneurs apart, that they are willing to take that risk, where other people might shrink back and stay in their comfort zone?

Part and parcel of being a success is taking a risk. No-one has a guarantee to be successful, but that’s about being ambitious. And being ambitious is not a God-given right of a select few. It’s a God-given right of everybody to want to be your best version of yourself, live your best life, take as many risks, and try and do what you want, not to be held back. As I say, ambition is not a gift reserved only for a few. It’s a birthright of everyone. Anyone can be ambitious for themselves. And ambitious people won’t settle other than anything than what they want. And having the resilience to go for it and taking the risk to go for it is important.

When it comes to ambition, for you, you’ve achieved so much. Is there anything that you are still ambitious about?

No, I don’t harper after anything. I had one ambition in my life, for my whole career, and that was to be independent. I’d been at boarding school until I was 18, and when you go to boarding school, you eat what you’re told, you wear what you’re told, get up when you’re told, go to bed when you’re told, spend your whole life doing what you’re told. And by 18, I’d had enough. I wanted control over my life. I wanted to say what I wanted to do and when I wanted to do it and how I wanted to do it. I realised that I wanted to be independent, but I knew that true independence really only comes if you have your own money, and then you can make your own choices.

And for me, I realised that even before you work for yourself, you almost always work for someone else. I went off and got my career started, with the idea of having my own money, so I could have more control over my life. And that ambition of being independent has been fulfilled. I can say no to anything I want. And when you’re building a career, you have to say yes to everybody who asks you, your boss, your colleagues, your family, everybody. And you say yes, but what you really want to say is no. And to get to the point in your life when you can say no, because you don’t want to do it, and you don’t have to say yes, has been my ambition that’s been fulfilled.

And now I do the things I love. I do the House of Lords, I campaign for equality and to end domestic violence, all of those issues that are close to me or important to me, those I can spend my time on.

The country’s going through economic turmoil, but is this a time when entrepreneurs can thrive?

Yes. Look, successful businesses start when there’s good economic times and when there’s bad economic times. It’s all about having an idea, spotting a gap in the market for a product or a service, that somebody that’s different and better, about looking at a business that you think you can turn around. So, lots of economic downsides and upsides create opportunities. You just have to spot what they are. But it’s never been easier in some regards to set up a business, because if you and I had an idea for a business now, in two hours we could have a website selling that business. Whereas years ago, you’d have to have a physical presence, a physical product, whereas now you can have a dabble, you can try things, you can do things on the side, you can see if they work for you, leave the security of your job. But it all starts with an unwavering belief that you can do it.

And lots of people have an idea for a business, but they don’t have the gumption or determination to turn that idea into reality. So, an entrepreneur is a mindset. It’s a mindset, you can do it. You know there will be setbacks. You don’t listen to the well-meaning people that say, “That’s a bit risky, don’t do that.” You back yourself, you believe in yourself, you have an idea, and you’re willing to work extremely hard to see it to fruition. Armed with all of those things, if you wait for the ideal economic climate, you’ll never do anything. So, my advice is just to risk it, take it, do it. Because I read this thing in the paper that said the definition of Hell is that on your last day on Earth, the person you could have will meet the person you are. And that to me felt like you could live a whole life of missed opportunities, of never going for it, of holding back, of not really knowing what you can do and how you can do it, what you can achieve, what you can’t achieve, not finding something you love.

My advice is, don’t wait for the right economic climate. Just go for it.

The Apprentice streams on BBC iPlayer.