Conor Galvin, a Cork entrepreneur, is among the contestants on the new series of BBC One's The Apprentice, which begins on Thursday night. The West Cork native and owner of the photobooth business Press Print Paper hopes the show will help his business become a household name.
Speaking on the Neil Prendeville Show, Galvin, the first Cork hopeful in the history of the UK version of The Apprentice, said the experience has deepened his pride in being Irish. "It just didn't strike with me how it would resonate with people - like there's the Irish guy in the UK. And the biggest thing I've learned over the last two weeks is that I'm so proud to be Irish, and like, the pride that we as a country hold on our own is just, it's unparalleled," he said.
Press Print Paper specializes in "creating instant, vintage-style newspaper prints with an interactive photobooth," and Galvin has plans to expand the business to London, Manchester, and Birmingham. While the business may be fun and light-hearted, he insists he is a serious candidate on the show. "I'm constantly learning the tougher side of strategy, structure, and scaling," he explained.
Galvin, who hails from Glengarriff, studied medicine at university but dropped out twice before eventually graduating in law and business. He is one of 20 contestants competing for a £250,000 investment in their business from Alan Sugar.
The first episode of the new series will see contestants in Hong Kong. Looking ahead, Sugar said of the show’s 20th anniversary season: "There's no one thing I can put my finger on, watch out for this or watch out for that, because they're all great episodes."
He added: "The first episode is excellent, and it was excellent because the boardroom was excellent. The events that occurred leading up to that boardroom were very, very good because there were conflicts among a couple of candidates that really played out well. And if I say so myself, I think I was very good in it!"
The new series of The Apprentice begins on BBC One on Thursday, 29 January at 9:00 pm. The spin-off show, The Apprentice: Unfinished Business, hosted by Angela Scanlon, will air on BBC Two at 10:05 pm the same night. Scanlon recently appeared as a contestant on The Celebrity Apprentice: Christmas Specials on BBC One.
