You're hired – on Sir Alan's 'gut instinct'

Published on Sunday 7 June 2009 22:07

RESTAURANT owner Yasmina Siadatan won a job with Sir Alan Sugar in last night's final of The Apprentice.

The 27-year-old Londoner was hired by Sir Alan on what she described as the businessman's "gut instinct", despite her rival Kate Walsh being in a good position to win.

Ms Siadatan said her mistakes as well as her achievements may have given her the edge. Asked how she felt to have won the coveted job, Ms Siadatan said: "I can't believe it, I am in shock. All those months ago you first apply to try to get on, and here I am, it's amazing."

On beating Ms Walsh, who had performed consistently well in the series, Ms Siadatan said the mistakes she had made – which included confusing the gross profit with the net profit of her restaurant on her CV – may have endeared her to Sir Alan.

She said: "I don't feel like I've beaten Kate because I feel we both deserved that job, and we feel we just had different qualities and Sir Alan needed my qualities over hers. I don't think mine were any better than hers, I just think that's the kind of guy Sir Alan is, and I'm sure Kate will do just as well as I do, but on a different path.

"Sir Alan described it in a nutshell when he said, 'I can't put it into words why I chose Yasmina, it was just a gut instinct'. I think because of the way that I performed, even though I made some quite serious errors, as we've seen, I was also able to show him that I exceeded in certain areas. The profit I made in the catering task was the biggest profit he's ever seen on an Apprentice task.

"Maybe I've shown him that even though I've got this real confidence and real strength in some areas, I've also got a side of me that is slightly insecure and slightly unsure and I will make mistakes. But without that side to you, I don't think you can ever really excel and succeed."

Ms Siadatan is now looking forward to starting work with Sir Alan, even though the job is a world away from her restaurant, Mya Lacarte, in Caversham.

She said: "The actual product will be completely different. Catered food and digital signage are completely different industries and products but, as you've seen in The Apprentice, to get as far as I did you have to be totally adaptable."

IT DOESN'T TAKE BRAINS

DID the best woman win? On the face of it, 27-year-old Yasmina Siadatan lacks the basic business acumen to survive.

Some of her jaw-dropping clangers – such as confusing gross profit with the net profit of her own business on her CV – must have had accountants cringing into their TV dinners.

In episode four, during the task to create a beauty product, she mistook cedarwood essential oil for oh-so-expensive sandalwood – blowing her team's budget out of the water.

Strangely (for an award-winning restaurateur, when charged with creating canaps for a glamorous cocktail party), Yasmina insisted on throwing value brands from a supermarket deep freeze on to plates and passing them off as gourmet nibbles. No-one was fooled.

Last night, viewers saw a model who tried Yasmina's new box of chocolates spit one out in disgust.

Yet this businesswoman who doesn't realise her accounts can be traced by one phone call to Company House, this restaurant owner who only seems capable of serving horrible food, was chosen by Alan Sugar to be his fifth apprentice because she appealed to his famous "gut instinct".

Is he making a terrible mistake? Let's look at the stats: Yasmina led her team to victory on each of the three occasions she was project manager. The profit she made in the catering task was the biggest ever seen on The Apprentice.

She's gutsy, she's ballsy, and hungry for success. Sometimes, that's all it takes.

SUGAR JOBS WARNING

SIR Alan Sugar has been warned he could face a conflict of interest with his new role in the government and his status as a BBC TV host of The Apprentice.

The businessman has already been in discussions with the broadcaster over its strict impartiality rules, he admitted. He was appointed enterprise tsar by Gordon Brown in Friday's reshuffle. But the Tories have ratcheted up the pressure on him to choose, warning the new "enterprise champion" could not have both roles.

Shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt said the two jobs were "totally incompatible".

Sir Alan insists he his "politically neutral".