Syed Ahmed

Syed Ahmed
Born	17 September 1974 (age 35) Sylhet, Bangladesh
Residence	London, United Kingdom
Alma mater	Ealing, Hammersmith and West London College
Occupation	Businessman
Known for	Candidate on The Apprentice
Religion	Muslim
Website Syed Ahmed - Official Site

Syed Ahmed (born 17 September 1974) is a British entrepreneur, businessman and television personality^[1]. He is the founder and CEO of the hand and body drier company SA Vortex. He is best known for his 2006 appearance in the second UK series of the BBC reality television showThe Apprentice, in which contestants compete for a £100,000-a-year job working for British business magnate Sir Alan Sugar. He is a director of the charity Restless Beings that he helped to set up.^[2]

Ahmed was born in Bangladesh,^[3][4] when he was nine months old,^[5] he moved with his parents to England and was brought up in the East End of London.^[6][7] Brought up in a devout Muslim family,^[8] his father worked as a tailor, and his mother a housewife, raising Ahmed and his five sisters at home. He attended the Sir John Cass Redcoat School in Stepney, from the age of 11 to 17 achieving 7 GCSEs. He then attended the Hammersmith College, where he achieved aBTEC in Business and Finance. He worked as a waiter and managed restaurants, including the Titanic, part of the White Starline Group, owned by Marco Pierre White.^[3][9] He trained at the Air Training Corps and had the prospect of becoming an RAF pilot as he earnt the Duke of Edinburgh Gold standard award, but decided to go into business instead.^[10][edit]Background

Ahmed is currently the CEO of SA Vortex, which specialises in high-speed hand dryers and body dryers.^[11] Ahmed's development of SA Vortex was shown in an hour-long documentary, Hot Air, broadcast on Sky. Ahmed initially financed the business himself.^[12] Ahmed was a director of the IT recruitment consultancy firm IT People (claimed to have a turnover of £1.6 million) until May 2006, and a director of Magenta Partnerships Limited from June 2006 until February 2007. He is currently a director of Get Launched Limited and a Non Executive Director and Advisor of Restless Beings Limited.^[2]

Ahmed has made speeches to the young enterprise community,^[14][15] and the more general enterprise community in Britain.^[16]

The Apprentice

Ahmed appeared as a candidate in series two of The Apprentice, a British reality television show hosted by Sir Alan Sugar. The series was broadcast from February to May 2006. On the show Ahmed was a member of the "Invicta" team.

For the first week the task was to sell fruit and vegetables, Syed was one of the three brought back into the boardroom. Ahmed was chosen as project manager for Invicta in week 3, and led the team to win. He was brought into the boardroom again in week 4 for ordering too manychickens, but was lucky enough to be given a chance. In week 8, Ahmed was chosen again as project manager for Invicta, but was part of the losing team, however not fired, for having impressed Sir Alan with his selling talent, and brought into the boardroom again in the next week again surviving. For the week 10 task, Ahmed organised a above-deck fun day on a cruise ship. The teams were told they would not be judged solely on sales, but also on other criteria including marketing, originality and customer satisfaction. At the end of the task, Invicta had made £191.50 and the opposing team, Velocity, had made £507. Ahmed was subsequently fired for not performing very well in the task, mainly for the handling of raffle tickets, where customers had to write their names down behind the tickets which caused confusions between the team, Sir Alan explained "Syed, despite some flashes of genius, you're too much of a risk for me", as he was fired.

One of his famous quotes on the show which has influenced business leaders was a, £100,000 salary is not enough but it's a good place to start."

Post Apprentice

After the appearance on The Apprentice, Ahmed has received high amounts of media attention, mainly due to his out-going personality.

He appeared on Sky News as a paper reviewer – reviewing current and forthcoming newspapers in a celebrity panel. He also has appeared on interviews, at BBC Breakfast with candidate Jo Cameron on the BBC,^[18] and also at GMTV on ITV, where he has said he is "trying to protect" Dewberry from the media.^[19] He appeared on Sky One's program called The Match, where 80 celebrities take part to win a place in a celebrity football squad.^[20] However, he was not picked for the team after the trials, due to disappointing performance, as he explained: "I ran out of steam."^[21] Ahmed again appeared on another Sky One show, called Cirque de Celebrité (from October 2006), featuring celebrity circus acts, and he was voted off in the second week. He subsequently returned as a guest judge.^[22]

At the end of the year 2006, Ahmed was voted third as one of the "Arena Anti-Icon" of the year, which also included Pete Doherty, Russell Brand, Gordon Ramsay and others.^[23][24][25] A Sky One documentary (from June 2007) called, Syed Ahmed - Hot Air?, featured Ahmed attempting to launch a new company which specialises in body dryers, with £20,000 of his own money, to develop in three months.In July 2010,Syed appeared on Big Brother's Little Brother.^[26][27][28] The program followed the launch of the SA Vortex's body dryer products, owned by Ahmed.

In 2008, he organised and led a race in support of a breast cancer charity.^[30] He also sends money to families and charities located in Bangladesh.Ahmed was one of the four contestants with Secret Millionaires, who attended the Geared for Giving campaign to help promote the Workplace Giving, on May 2009.^[31] Ahmed also took part in a charity relay to raise money for children in Gaza. Gaza100, was held on 24 May 2009 in Mile End Park, east London, attracting over 1,500 people, which included also Apprentice candidates, Ghazal Asifand Tre Azam.