Tim Campbell

Winner of the first series of The Apprentice

“Working with Sir Alan, having contact with the sort of people I have, makes you think anything is possible. If you really have an idea you can make it come true with right kind of effort.”

Formerely a Middlesex University Psychology graduate, Tim Campbell went onto become a Transport Manager with London Underground before landing a sixth figure salary of £100,000 a year with Amstrad, in the marketing and devlopment product line, through winning the first series of The Apprentice.

However, despite having “lived the apprentice dream” for two years, under the careful guidance of Sir Alan Sugar, it was recently announced that he has made a decision to leave Amstrad to set up his own male grooming business and develop a social enterprise trust to offer advice to budding entrepreneurs. Campbell explained that this was no reflection of working for Amstrad or under Sir Alan Sugar infact Campbell announced that he leaves Amstrad with Sir Alan’s blessing and a comment “Kid I’m really glad you’ve got the balls to stand on your own two feet”. However, Campbell went onto explain that he came into the role as an apprentice simply to learn “I never saw it as a job for life. I never saw Sir Alan as a Blank Cheque”. However, mixing with Sir Alan, said to be work a whopping 800 million, has most definitely had an influence on the down to earth Stratford lad. “Working with Sir Alan, having contact with the sort of people I have, makes you think anything is possible. If you really have an idea you can make it come true with right kind of effort.”

His trust  the “Bright Idea Trust” is already attracting a lot of attention from entrepreneurs such as Stelios and Branson. The Bright Idea Trust will fill a gap for people with ideas who simply would not know where to support when talking about patents and IT needs. He hopes it will be awarded charitable status by this summer and thinks it will be self-supporting within 3-5 years.