The board
The board
Published: 27 September 2016
Having left school in Hackney aged 16, Alan Sugar started selling electric goods out of a van he bought for £50. In 1968, he founded Amstrad and now, over 48 years later, he has an estimated worth of over £1 billion and was ranked 95th in the 2016 Sunday Times Rich List.
A former Chairman of Tottenham Hotspur FC, he sold his Amstrad empire to Sky in July 2007. His other companies include Amscreen, the UK’s largest digital media owner and property investment firm Amsprop. Until 2014 he was chairman of Viglen, a manufacturer specialising in computers, networks and solutions.
In 2000, he was knighted for his services to business and he holds two honorary Doctorates of Science degrees, awarded by City University and Brunel University respectively.
Having previously sat on the Business Council for Britain and fronted a campaign promoting the benefits of apprenticeships, he was named as the government’s Enterprise Champion in 2009 and appointed to the House of Lords as Baron Sugar of Clapton in the London Borough of Hackney.
Lord Sugar has also appeared in all eleven series’ of BBC’s The Apprentice, where aspiring young businessmen and women compete for the chance to work with him. The twelfth series goes on air this autumn.
Lord Sugar is a philanthropist for a number of charities including Great Ormond Street Hospital and Jewish Care.
Claude Littner
Claude Littner has had a varied career in business having been involved in many companies across a number of industries and geographic locations. These have included start-up, AIM listed and fully quoted companies. For much of his career he has been involved in corporate turnarounds.
He first started working with Lord Sugar in 1990 and began chairing a number of his companies including Amstrad International, AMSTRAD Spain and Dancall Telecom. When Lord Sugar was majority owner and chairman of Tottenham Hotspur, Claude was Chief Executive from 1993 – 1998. He was also Deputy Chairman of Blacks Leisure plc, Chairman of ASCO plc and Chairman and majority shareholder of Powerleague plc.
In 2014, the University of West London Business School was named after Claude in appreciation of his exemplary business track record and contributions to the university. He is currently a visiting professor there.
Claude has been featured on The Apprentice since season one, famously interviewing candidates in the penultimate episode of each series. In series 11, he replaced Nick Hewer as Lord Sugar’s aide alongside Karren Brady.
Karren Brady
Karren Brady, Baroness Brady of Knightsbridge CBE, is the executive Vice-Chairman of West Ham FC, the Senior Non-Executive Director of the Syco and Arcadia Boards and the Small Business Ambassador for the Government. In December 2013 she was awarded a CBE for services to women in business and entrepreneurship.
Karren was the youngest Managing Director of a PLC in the UK when she floated her business on the London stock market in 1997, she was 27 years old. She sold that business, Birmingham City FC in 2009 and in 2010 became the Vice Chairman of West Ham FC, the Premier League club that moved into the Olympic Stadium this year as part of a deal she negotiated on behalf of the club.
Previously, she spent 7 years serving on both the Boards of Channel 4 television, where she chaired the Remuneration Committee and the global retailer Mothercare PLC.
She has won many awards for services to business over the years, including being named Business Woman of the Year and most Inspirational Woman of the Year. She has also been presented with the coveted Spirit of Everywoman Award, acknowledging her outstanding achievements in changing the landscape for women in business.
Karren has emerged as a powerful advocate for British business and in September 2013 addressed the Conservative Party Conference and is proud to be the Small Business Ambassador for the Government, traveling up and down the country meeting and engaging with small business owner who are the back bone of the British economy. She serves on the Department for Culture Media & Sport's WISAB (Women in Sport Advisory Board) to help increase the status, influence and participation of women in the world of sport.
She is also the Chairman of Mentore, a business whose sole purpose is to use mentoring as a solution for businesses to accelerate the development of female talent in their organisations to increase diversity at board and at senior levels in companies across the UK.
Charity plays a large part in her life and she is the Patron of The Stroke Association and an Ambassador for WellChild and Teenage Cancer Trust.
She has a business doctorate from the University of Birmingham. She is a columnist and has written four books, her latest one being a Sunday Times bestseller.
She has been made a Conservative Party Life Peer and joined the Lords as Baroness Brady of Knightsbridge CBE in 2014. She is married with two children.
