The Apprentice 2019: Fired candidate Kenna says he was ‘genuinely hurt’ to be sacked

Lord Sugar fired project manager Kenna despite Dean being hauled into the boardroom for a second time
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Isobel Frodsham10 October 2019

The latest Apprentice candidate to be fired has admitted he could have improved his final products before selling them – but insists he should have stayed in the competition.

Kenna Ngoma, 24, was fired by Lord Alan Sugar and dubbed “as resolute as an empty crisp bag in the wind” after his team lost this week’s challenge.

The men and the women were tasked with creating and selling two types of ice lollies – one bespoke for a high end client and one for the public – with an aim to try and make as much profit as possible.

Kenna – who owns an alcohol-infused ice cream company – was chosen as project manager for the task due to his experience in the field.

At odds: Kenna (right) was fired but believes Dean (left) should have been sacked 
BBC

But when his colleagues Dean Ahmad, Ryan-Mark Parsons and Souleyman Bath failed to impress the gourmet client with their coconut milk, raspberry and edible gold lollies, the boys lost the competition.

Lord Sugar condemned Dean’s actions after he walked away from an offer for £1 per ice lolly from the client, leaving them £100 down in profit in the final task.

Despite Dean's blunder and being hauled into the boardroom for a second time, Lord Sugar announced Kenna would be fired after “losing complete control of his team, recipe and kitchen” and failing to improve the lollies.

In the episode, the businessman is then seen placing his head in his heads after walking out of the boardroom.

Creating: The boys are seen tasting flavours for their ice lollies 
BBC

Speaking about his departure, Kenna told the Standard Online: “I’m genuinely gutted. You could see with the last scene as I got fired at how genuinely hurt I was, just because I thought I wouldn’t be the one that went that week.”

He added: “100% Dean [should have gone]. I watched the episode back and if I was a fan, I would have 100% said Dean should go.

“I said to Dean, I think they [the gourmet customers] will try to negotiate the price down, make sure you come back with something decent. Don’t come back empty handed, and he did.”

Addressing the criticism made against him, Kenna said: “I think the comments about adding products to the corporate customer's [order] were completely fair. I got given a brief from the sub team which was really bare and light – it was raspberry, coconut milk and glitter. In hindsight I could’ve added some raspberry bits or tinkered it a bit, so I think that was fair.

Awkward: Lord Sugar said the ice lollies looked like "a pig's trotter" 
BBC

“But I think the crisp bag comment is wrong because if you saw how challenging a few of the guys were, I think I handled them quite well.

“If you saw my side of the team – Tommy, Lewis and Ryan – there was no conflict on my side. Everything went swimmingly well. We sold 80 per cent of our lollies, I was second top salesman. My kitchen was also a slick machine.”

Kenna added that the reason the gourmet lollies – which were dubbed as “looking like a pig’s trotter” by Lord Sugar – were presented as they were was because there was not enough time to remake them.

“The only thing we could have done was swap lollies – so give the corporate customer the public’s lollies like Souleyman suggested - but I was wary of that because they had asked for x, so I didn’t want to give them y,” he said.

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