Lord Sugar has picked Anisa Khan and Dean Franklin as his two finalists for The Apprentice 2025.
Pizza company owner Khan will face off against air conditioning salesman Franklin in the final of the BBC business show next Thursday, after beating fellow contestants Amber-Rose Badrudin, Chisola Chitambala and Jordan Dargan in the interview stage.
The final will see “familiar faces” return to help create brands and advertising campaigns, before the pair give their final pitch in an attempt to convince the 78-year-old businessman to make them his business partner and invest £250,000.
Anisa Khan, owner of an Indian-Italian fusion pizza company, and Dean Franklin (right), owner of an air conditioning company, with Lord Sugar (Yui Mok/PA)
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Speaking about reaching the final, Khan said: “I was really happy, but when I went into this competition my mindset was always to win. I kept my eye on the prize.
“So even though the losses, obviously, weren’t planned and they had a bit of impact on me because no-one wants to lose every single week, a part of me knew I’d always make it to the final because I kept that mindset.
“And there’s something I did as well, which is I had planned my outfit for the final, which is a cultural outfit.
“I actually brought that into the house with me.
“I was like, ‘I’m going all the way to the final so I need to get my final outfit ready’, I had the outfit ready in my wardrobe because I knew I was going to wear it.
“It’s a bit like manifesting. Why not?
“That’s what kept me going, especially when I had all the losses, I was like, ‘It doesn’t really matter because I’m still going to be in the final’.”
The two finalists have gone through rounds of televised tasks to reach the final (Yui Mok/PA)
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Khan described Franklin as a “worthy opponent” and said she thought his business idea could “make a lot of money”.
Franklin said: “I mean, it’s a dream, you sign up to this process and you think, ‘I’ve got a one-in-80,000 chance of actually getting on the show’.
“To get on the show is a massive achievement in itself, you’ve already defied the odds, and you’ve already got to a good point.
“But for me, the goal was to make the final five.
“I thought if I get to the final five, I’m happy. And then to go on further and further and you think, ‘Can I win it?’, to make the final was massive for me.”
Lord Sugar has selected his two finalists for The Apprentice (Matt Frost/BBC/PA)
The salesman tripped up during his interview with Mark Soutar as he described climate change as “climate control” and was shown a picture posted to his social media of a sex toy attached to an air conditioning unit, which Soutar felt was unprofessional.
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He added that he thought his fellow finalist had “smashed it” on the programme, and said he had “nothing but respect for her”.
With Khan, Soutar ordered one of her company’s pizzas prior to the interview and told her there were “serious problems” such as the order being late, but described his food as “delicious” calling it a “five star pizza”.
Franklin said the best part of winning the show would be making his family “proud”, adding that he wanted his children to “go into school the next morning and say, ‘my dad’s won The Apprentice’,” adding that “no other dad in that school has done that”.
Khan said winning would allow her to grow her company into a “million-pound business” and added she also wanted it to be “a win for people who feel like I represent them as well”, should she take home Lord Sugar’s investment.
The Apprentice continues on Thursday at 9pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.
