Council leader Paul Swaddle in the final episode of 2015’s The Apprentice series [BBC]

THE new council leader’s appearance on The Apprentice as an “adviser” to Alan Sugar got another namecheck at a council meeting as he was sworn in as leader.

In reality this was a very brief appearance in the final episode of the 2015 series of the long-running show, watched by just over six million people. The series brings in industry experts to provide insight into the candidates’ business ideas and Paul Swaddle was part of the team who fed back on the business plan about a new mobile dating app.

Cllr Swaddle, who lives in St John’s Wood, was there due to his day job as CEO of Pocket App Ltd, at the time the country’s largest indepen­dent app developer.

He has also advised brands including Kellogg’s, Barclays and Loaded magazine on developing their mobile strategies, reported Wokingham Today, a local paper covering Berkshire.

As an app specialist, he grilled finalist Vana Koutsomitis on her “gamified” dating app.

At the time Cllr Swaddle said: “Making it to the final of The Apprentice is no mean feat, and Vana should be extremely proud of what she has achieved.

“She has a great business idea and performed very well under considerable pressure in last night’s final, and throughout the series as a whole in fact.

“It was a real privilege to be involved in the show and I thought Vana’s idea was a great concept but the £250k investment from Lord Sugar was not enough to develop the app fully and turn it into a commercial­ised product to take to market. In my experience another round of funding is normally required.

“In fact we help a lot of app entrepreneurs, not only develop their concept but also raise the money they need to take the app to market, and I am certainly keen to work with Vana to do this if she wants to progress her idea and am already in talks with her about how we might support her.”

Ms Koutsomitis, who was named runner-up, is now vice-president of wealth management firm Raymond James & Associates in the US.

And what of the finalist, who pipped Vanya to the post?

Joseph Valente split from Lord Sugar on good terms in 2017 just two years after winning the £250,000 investment into his plumbing business and announced he would take full control of ImpraGas.

In the summer of 2020 he was reportedly forced to sell his boiler installation business amid reports it owed almost £2million to creditors. ImpraGas was sold for an undisclosed sum,
safe­guarding jobs, but company VBH Assets, co-owned by Joseph, entered into voluntary liquidation, owing £1.9million to creditors.

But he started again from scratch, and his new business trainer company, Trade Mastermind, is going from strength to strength.

Cllr Swaddle appeared in a series of the long-running show that had to be delayed due to the BBC’s political impar­tiality rules after Lord Sugar decided he didn’t like Labour any more and took up a role within the Tory government.

His register of interests shows he remains a director of Pocket App Ltd, and also Swaddle Ltd, both based in Westminster.