Biography: Ben Clarke

Ben Clarke was born and bred in Belfast, and at age 22 is a trainee stockbroker at the investment bank Brewin Dolphin in London. Apparently, before he got his job as a trainee stockbroker, he worked as a look-a-like for the Welsh rugby player Gavin Henson . He has a BA (Hons) in Economics & Business.

According to the Sun newspaper, he has already been fired from Brewin Dolphin for bragging about the Apprentice and announcing he was taking time off for the contest. One colleague said, "Ben has the biggest head in the world. As soon as he knew he had been selected to audition for The Apprentice, he became unbearable. ...He kept saying, ‘I’m leaving you losers and going to win The Apprentice".

Apparently he also failed one of his stockbroker exams and had to retake it.

He was the most offputting candidate in the first episode declaring that "To me, making money is better than sex" and then saying he admired Hugh Hefner - who is all about sex! He is clearly confused!  It's hard to see Sir Alan hiring him as the Apprentice, and easy to imagine that Ben will irritate his fellow contestants as much as he irritated his colleagues at Brewin Dolphin - but some bookmarkers reckoned he was favourite to win. We await to see how he performs in the second episode of the Apprentice.

News outlets report that he had to apologise to fellow contestant Kimberly Davis for calling her "clinically obese" in episoide three.  

Update: 15th April 2009. Ben ended up in the boardroom for the second week running, and again he showed himself  very good at arguing his case. In truth he should have got fired this week for simply not bothering to take an interest in costs despite his team leader Paula Jones assigning this task to him. But he was so good at defending his corner in the boardroom, he survived yet again. He is someone to watch as boardroom skills are almost as important as task skills in this show.  

Update 5th May 2009 Ben Clarke is constantly boasting about how he won a place at military academy Sandhurst, even though he never took up his place there. It now turns out that the army sponsored him through university, giving him about £4000, and expected him to take up his place at Sandhurst in return. They only realised that he had instead gone into stockbroking after leaving university a short while ago, when he turned up on TV as a candidate for the Apprentice. They were not impressed. The condition of his sponsorship was that he attend the academy for a year, and then serve three years in the army in the front line. Apparently Ben asked them if he could defer entry for two years. He must start with them by 2011 at the latest or repay all his sponsorship.

Update 12th May 2009 It seems that Ben is keen on becoming a TV celebrity. According to the Daily Star, he met up with last year's contestants Claire Young and Raef Bjayou to pick their brains on how to get agents and get on TV

Update 20th May 2009 ben got fired in episode nine. It was between him and Debra Barr as to who would go. I feel Debra should have been fired over him, but clearly Sir Alan rated her more.