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The Apprentice contestant gutted by fastest firing

Eleri Griffiths
BBC News
BBC/Naked/Ray Burmiston Picture of Nadia Suliaman in a mustard yellow top. She stands infront of a green screen of London. She looks blankly into the camera and has brown eyes and dark brown hair. BBC/Naked/Ray Burmiston
The Welsh candidate's upbringing in her family's kebab shop fuelled her desire to become a businesswoman

It was one of the fastest firings on reality show The Apprentice, with a Welsh contestant describing the experience as "a rollercoaster of emotion".

Swansea-born Nadia Suliaman once lived in a rat-infested bungalow with 30 people but now owns five businesses, and said appearing on the BBC1 show had always been a dream of hers.

But after being appointed project manager for a task entitled "transform crops into profit", Ms Suliaman chose to make sausage and mash instead of potato skins - which subsequently led to her downfall.

Despite being gutted about her elimination in the fourth week of the BBC One show, she hopes host Lord Sugar could still invest in her business.

At the end of each episode, Lord Sugar considers which candidate to fire - usually mulling over the decision as he hears from each one.

But the decision to fire Ms Suliaman was reached with little deliberation, leading to speculation it may have been the fastest ever.

She began working in her parents' kebab shops at the age of six.

The salon owner said her parents divorced when she was 10, and her mother "used to have to fight like tooth and nail" to keep a roof over their heads.

The 36-year-old admitted "opportunities were hard" being raised by a single mum and she used to experience comments about not being fully Welsh in school.

It "lit the fire in my belly", she said, to become a businesswoman, as she went on to study business at Swansea University.

Ms Suliaman admitted she found her degree difficult, as she worked three jobs while studying, often going straight from a petrol garage to her university exams.

"It built resilience inside me, and it made me feel like a really strong person that I could overcome everything and anything in my life," she said.

Fired on the fourth episode of the show, Nadia Suliaman remains optimistic Lord Alan Sugar could still invest one day

Ms Suliaman said she applied for The Apprentice as she has always loved the show and wanted to be able to inspire other "amazing" women in this world.

"Whether they're coming from a deprived background, a tough upbringing, being a single mum themselves, or being brought up by a single parent - I want them to know that they can actually do anything," she said.

Ms Suliaman said she was one of 80,000 applicants.

"So you know the fact that I even got the interview in the first place, I just couldn't believe it," she added.

"It was so overwhelming."

Nadia Suliaman Nadia Suliaman, has a brown bardot dress on and smiles looking up to the ceiling holding a green sign reading "hired" in large white text. She has dark brown hair and brown eyes. Nadia Suliaman
Nadia Suliaman says it has always been a dream of hers to go on the show, having watched The Apprentice for 15 years

Despite it being "a pressure cooker situation", Ms Suliaman said she found the experience amazing.

"I think I just loved the adrenaline rush to be totally truthful," she said.

However, she said it was difficult at times as the contestants were filmed for 14 hours a day, and then they would go home to cook food and share a bedroom together.

"It was a tough experience," she said.

"I mean, I would have been blind to go into this thinking I'm going to completely smash it.

"It's not for everyone, you're thrown in the deep end and you're completely stripped back to understand how you would deal with things in these scenarios.

"It's just mad but I loved it, it was awesome."

Nadia Suliaman Picture of Nadia Suliaman pictured in a bright green suit. She stands outside black fencing around a white townhouse. She smiles with her head titled to the side at the camera. She has very dark brown hair, pulled half up and half down. She has brown eyes. Nadia Suliaman
Nadia now lives in London and owns a premium salon chain with a celebrity clientele

Ms Suliaman's time on the show came to an end after her failure in episode four's challenge, which asked the teams to transform crops into profit.

After being nominated as her team's project manager, Ms Suliaman choose to make and sell bangers and mash, rather than taking her team's advice of making potato skins.

Lord Sugar wasted no time in singling out Ms Suliaman for elimination after she and her team faced him in the boardroom.

In what some have speculated to be the "fastest ever firing", Lord Sugar described the decision to fire her as "never a so obvious decision".

Nadia Suliaman Nadia Suliaman, has a baby blue suit on and looks directly at the camera, standing on the doorway of her salon shop in between two white rose bushes. She has dark brown hair and brown eyes. Nadia Suliaman
"I had left Lord Sugar in a position of not being able to fight for me anymore" said Ms Suliaman

Ms Suliaman said: "There was a quite a big conversation around it before the decision was made, and ultimately, from my perspective, I genuinely felt that potato skins would go soggy."

She added that she thought bangers and mash would be more financially viable, but now admits she was wrong and thinks her firing was fair.

"I had left Lord Sugar in a position of not being able to fight for me anymore," she said.

But she told others with a dream of succeeding in business: "Believe in yourself and be patient."