Dundee’s Mike Soutar is once again taking centre stage in The Apprentice as the final five candidates unveil their business plans.
The entrepreneur has been on the BBC show’s interview panel since 2010 and is always a hit with viewers.
He makes his latest appearance in the show on Thursday night.
But who is the mogul helping Lord Sugar narrow down the shortlist for his next partner?
Here are 11 interesting facts about Mike Soutar.
1 – First school days in Fife
The businessman went to school in Fife, where he was a pupil at Glenrothes High School between 1978 and 1984.
He attended South Parks Primary School.
2 – Teaching dreams
In a 1997 profile, Mike revealed he initially had ambitions of becoming a PE teacher.
He said: “I’d had an idea at school that I wanted to be a PE teacher, but when I went along to the one college in Scotland that offered a course in it I didn’t like it that much.”
3 – He started out at DC Thomson
Thursday’s episode of The Apprentice saw Mike follow the teams around before reporting back on their successes and failures in the infamous boardroom.
But the TV star is no stranger to battling it out for a job, having undertaken a similar process when he started out in journalism after realising a career as a teacher wasn’t for him.
“I saw an advert in the local paper for editorial assistants at DC Thomson in Dundee, and got really fired up about it,” he said.
“What DC Thomson did was to take on six people every three months, and at the end of that time they would get rid of four.
“I was offered a job, and was one of the two that survived.”
4 – From horoscopes to pop editor
Working on a magazine called Secrets, Mike learned his trade writing beauty tips and horoscopes (as did Hollywood star Alan Cumming at Evening Telegraph).
Then, aged 17, he was promoted to become the mag’s beauty editor.
“After three months doing that, I was promoted to working on Patches, a teenage girls’ magazine, as fiction editor, and then I became its assistant pop editor.
“Later, when the editor of Patches became editor of Jackie, she took me with her to become pop editor there.”
5 – He was a Jackie cover boy
Mike gave readers of Jackie a behind-the-scenes look at the magazine’s offices in a photo story.
The text read: “…introduced by the hostess with the mostest, posing Pop Ed, Mikey!”
Pictures show him larking around the office and chatting to colleagues.
6 – Rising to prominence at Smash Hits and FHM magazine
Keen to move to London, Mike left DC Thomson for a brief spell as a press officer for Virgin Records.
Aside from working with music legend Roy Orbison, it wasn’t a role he enjoyed.
He once said: “I felt being in PR was like being a glorified double-glazing salesman.”
After moving back into journalism at Smash Hits magazine, Mike quickly climbed the ladder and was eventually appointed editor at just 23.
Mike remained in the editor’s chair for three years, battling to turn the magazine’s fortunes around amid a slump in sales.
The Dundonian experienced greater success as editor of FHM, at the time a newly-launched lads’ mag which saw sales rocket from 50,000 to over half a million by the time he moved on.
7 – ‘Lucky’ moment he bagged Apprentice role
In 2024, Mike admitted that he was “very lucky” to bag an interviewer spot on The Apprentice.
In a post on LinkedIn, the businessman revealed how he was “pretty nervous” to meet Lord Sugar when he was first approached to take part in the programme.
8 – He’s a fearsome TV interrogator
Mike first appeared on The Apprentice in 2010, taking part in the much-anticipated interview sessions during the final stages of the competition.
Quizzing the finalists on their CVs and businesses, viewers have enjoyed watching the former Kiss FM chief put candidates on the spot with tough questions.
Seeing @MikeSoutar has this memory rushing back 🙈 #TheApprentice pic.twitter.com/JR2JCV4rxd
— pamela laird (@Pamela_Laird) March 10, 2022
One former candidate, Pamela Laird, was caught out after she claimed her business delivered products within days.
But Mike revealed he had actually purchased something from her firm and had been waiting 11 days.
9 – He is a successful entrepreneur
Dad-of-two Mike – married to wife Bev for nearly three decades – founded his own business in 2007 in the form of Shortlist Media, which publishes the Stylist magazine.
He served as chairman until 2018 before moving to the Evening Standard as its first ever chief executive.
Mike left the role in April 2020, saying: “In the last few weeks I’ve taken time to reflect on my own ambitions and plans and it is on that basis that I have made the decision to step away to pursue other business interests.
“I will remain a passionate supporter of the Standard and its brilliant people.”
In an interview with The Courier three years ago, Mike revealed he decided to strike out on his own in 2007 following a period of ill health.
He said: “I had worked my way up the corporate ladder and I had a very comfortable existence – I had a massive private office, I had not one, but two assistants, I had a driver.
“The real catalyst was that I got ill. I ate a chicken caesar wrap and contracted salmonella which quickly mutated into typhoid.
“I was in hospital for a month and recuperating for several months.
“It really crystallised for me that if I had died then I would have died with real disappointment that I’d never been brave enough to do something for myself.”
10 – The Courier Business Awards
The master TV interrogator was a judge at the Courier Business Awards in 2019.
He told our business editor Rob McLaren: “In The Apprentice one of my jobs is to become familiar with lots of different business ideas in different marketplaces.
“I’m used to looking at businesses in sectors that I’m not familiar with as part of that and I guess that will be part of my job with the Courier Business Awards.”
And he laughed: “I promise not to be as brutal as I am with the interviewees with The Apprentice.”
11 – He’s a V&A Dundee board member
In October 2022, the V&A Dundee announced Mike would join the museum’s board.
He was one of several new appointments aiming to help the V&A recover from the pandemic.
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