I won The Apprentice and this is how much contact we have with Lord Sugar after the series: Harpreet Kaur reveals how often she speaks to the business tycoon
The Apprentice winner Harpreet Kaur has revealed how much contact the contestants have with Lord Sugar after the series.
The entrepreneur, 32, bagged the £250,000 investment last year for her desserts business, Oh So Yum!
But 18 months on, she has now parted ways with the business tycoon and bought back her shares in the company.
Harpreet has given an insight into how much she and Lord Sugar chat. She told The Sun: ‘Well, we don’t WhatsApp on the weekend but, you know, we’ve still got each other’s numbers.
‘If I needed him, I’m I’m pretty sure he’d be happy for me to message him.
The Apprentice winner Harpreet Kaur has revealed how much contact the contestants have with Lord Sugar after the series
The entrepreneur, 32, bagged the £250,000 investment last year for her desserts business, Oh So Yum!
‘I’m in touch with his team on sort of a weekly basis, you know, to kind of wrap things up.’
She added: ‘I’ve heard from him since the split, everything’s amicable, it was a mutual decision.’
Harpreet is the latest entrepreneur to have cut ties , announcing in August that she had bought back her shares in bakery business, Oh So Yum!, just 18 months after winning the show.
In an exclusive interview with MailOnline, Harpreet revealed exactly why she decided to part ways as well as revealing an insight into the real nature of Lord Sugar.
Speaking about Lord Sugar’s nature as a person she confessed: ‘What you see is what you get. Business is business.’
Addressing the spiky nature of the businessman that viewers so often see on The Apprentice she explained: ‘If you want investment for your business you have to take criticism.
‘You get lots of feedback because the investor is testing you to see if you’re a tough cookie and you can handle these questions b ecause if you can’t handle a little bit of criticism in the boardroom, you’ve got no chance in in the real world of business.
‘He’s just asking those harsh questions that you would have to face in reality.
‘I acknowledged that none of it is ever personal, he just want to find out a little bit more about you and your business.’
She added that while she doesn’t really speak to Lord Sugar anymore, noting that he’s a ‘very busy guy’, she still has a good relationship with his team.
‘If I did need anything in the future, it’s good to know that we’ve got a good relationship and I’m sure if I needed to I could pick up the phone,’ she said of his advisers and team.
Harpreet’s win last year was controversial, with Lord Sugar voicing concerns over the ‘scalable’ nature of her business, and that she ran her business with her sister – who Lord Sugar had not met.
As a result her sister Gurvinder became the joke of Internet memes during the show’s final after viewers believed she would be sacked from the company and replaced as a shareholder by Lord Sugar.
She told The Sun : ‘Well, we don’t WhatsApp on the weekend but, you know, we’ve still got each other’s numbers.’
Two of a kind: Harpreet’s win last year was controversial, with Lord Sugar voicing concerns that she ran her business with her sister Gurvinder (pictured) who he had not met
Yet Harpreet has revealed that her sister Gurvinder’s involvement had no bearing on her decision to part ways with Lord Sugar and she was still able to remain a director and own a stake in the company.
Discussing how the split came to be, she told MailOnline that the decision was ‘completely amicable and mutual’ but allowed her and her sister to have more creative control in the business.
READ MORE: Where are The Apprentice winners now?
‘The decision came about through a board discussion,’ she explained. ‘We are asked would we like to kind of take that ownership and buy back our shares but there are definitely no bad feelings.’
Harpreet – who is engaged to her The Apprentice co-star Akshay Thakrar – added that by appearing on the BBC show she achieved what she’d set out to do for her business, which was give it a national platform.
Revealing that she’d been approached on the street by viewers who had asked her about Oh So Yum! she added: ‘We may only have been with Lord Sugar for a short period but it benefited us.’
Offering advice to future candidates on The Apprentice, she said: ‘You have to be prepared to put that groundwork in. Winning an investment isn’t a magic formula.
‘Nobody’s going to hold your hand and you have to work extremely hard, there can be a lot of pressure.
‘You have to be willing to take on that pressure, take on the feedback and take on board someone else’s ideas and opinions, s o I think you just have to be prepared.
‘There’s no hiding. With The Apprentice, I think one of the reasons that I got as far as I did is because I fully invested in myself.’
Since winning the show, Harpreet has gone on to open another Oh So Yum! parlour in Bradford and also sealed a deal with luxury department store Selfridges.
Cute couple: As well as walking away from The Apprentice with a £250,000 investment she also met her fiancé Akshay Thakrar (pictured) who was fired in week nine of the process
She has also just collaborated with the Hilton hotel group, with Oh So Yum! launching its debut six-flavour Cookie Cup collaboration with the Hilton London Metropole, now available in-house at the Tyburn Market restaurant
Speaking about the move, Harpreet said: ‘There’s nothing sweeter than seeing our Cookie Cups available to buy at Hilton London Metropole – it’s truly a dream collaboration and to have the opportunity to work alongside such an iconic hotel is incredible.
‘I’m really pleased about because I feel like if a brand like Hilton recognizes the of what we do, we must be doing something, right.
‘The journey Oh So Yum! has been on so far has already been phenomenal, but this marks a very exciting new chapter and I couldn’t be more thrilled.’
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