Gerri Blackwood

Age: 33
Qualifications: BA Hons, Tourism
Career: Transport Development Manager
Home town: Woking, Surrey

Profile:
Highly driven and ambitious, Gerri believes that working for Sir Alan will be a platform where hard work achieves success. She is now a sales and marketing specialist with over five years of management experience and gave up a job with MI5 to apply for The Apprentice; she applied for both and was offered both on the same day – and ended up choosing Sir Alan Sugar over James Bond. Her first taste of business was as a six-year-old trading sweets with her sisters to the kids in her street for a huge profit. Her first paid job was in the local fish and chip ship earning £2 an hour before eventually joining Thomas Cook as a travel agent and then moving to a sales position at Eurostar. She has also trained as an Air Traffic Control Officer. She loves shopping and offers a PA type service to friends and relatives organising their Christmas and birthday presents.

She says: “It is easy to have confidence when you are a big fish in your own pond, but to suddenly be thrown into a sea of sharks you have a bit of a reality check.”