Joseph Valente Given Nod By Alan Sugar To Win The Apprentice

Joseph Valente has been chosen as the winner of this year’s edition of The Apprentice.

25 year-old plumber Valente thus became the eleventh winner of the competition after Alan Sugar – or Lord Sugar to those who like to fawn – selected him as a business partner, ahead of his final rival, Vana Koutsomitis.

Koutsomitis hoped to launch a dating app, Date Play. But it was Valente’s Prime Time Plumbing which carried the greatest appeal for the competition’s sugar daddy.

"It's very difficult,” the competition host said. “You couldn't get a wider difference between the two businesses."

That was no overstatement, with a high-tech app involving complex algorithms and psychometric profiling - assisted by an Oxford grad with 'A Phd in Desire' - pitted against a business built upon expanding an existing plumbing company, but after a pitch in front of industry experts and investors, Valente was given the nod, snapping up the prize of £250,000 in investment.

"Joseph is a great example of what's possible,” Sugar stated after the result was announced. "He turned his life around and decided he was going to go to work and here he is today, a well-deserved winner of The Apprentice. I look forward to him being my business partner. I hope it inspires a lot of people to see what is possible in this world.”

Meanwhile, the woman he had defeated at the final hurdle, Vana Koutsomitis, was gracious, acknowledging that Joseph Valente was a better choice to win. The 27-year-old said that her rival's personal story and chemistry with the show’s host made him better suited to being the businessman's partner.

"Joseph's story aligns very well with his and he wanted to give Joseph the chance that he needed to make his plumbing business huge", she reflected.

Koutsomitis, who grew up in New York and lives in Barcelona, is resolved to push ahead with the launch of her Date Play website and app. She has been speaking to investors and has also been approached by some of the industry experts and investors who saw her final pitch.

“I believe this is a marathon,” she has said, "and if you have stamina and if you do things with integrity, morals and direction, you can get where you want to go.”