Tissues needed after Raef is fired

Exeter graduate Raef Bjayou will not be Sir Alan Sugar’s Apprentice after he became the tenth candidate to be fired from the show.

The former Politics and History student was described by Sugar as “a lot of hot air” in the boardroom face-off with team mate Michael, who was fired the following week.

Bjayou was sent home after leading his team, Renaissance, to failure in the ninth task of the competition. The task involved creating a brand of tissues, complete with a television advertisement which had to be pitched to one of the world’s largest advertising agencies two days after the task was announced.

The team’s brand “I love my tissues” barely featured in their overly “arty” advert, much to Sugar’s disappointment.

He told the team “You made the biggest error going...I don’t know what your advert’s about.”

Bjayou has since claimed that his mistake was that he “deemed the audience to be more intelligent than they are.”

He added, “I found the other team’s ad vulgar and patronising. If that’s what advertising is about, then God help us.”

However, the opposing team, Alpha, produced the winning campaign, leaving Bjayou to face Sugar in the boardroom, which he had avoided since his team failed the first task of the series.

Members of Exeter’s School of Business and Economics believe the right decision was made, even though Bjayou showed a huge amount of promise at the start of the series.

Professor Paul Collier told Exeposé he thinks the problem was that Bjayou wasn’t what Sir Alan was looking for.

He said, “Raef performed when asked and played a positive but low profile role when he was not a team leader.

“Overall, he has intelligence and strong interpersonal skills and would in a logical world have been a strong candidate but clearly was not on Sir Alan’s wave length.”

Professor Collier also expressed his concerns regarding the effect Bjayou’s appearance on the show could have on Exeter’s reputation.

“I do wonder whether Katie last year and Raef this year reinforced stereotypes of the
University amongst the public to the detriment of its avowed intention to widen participation.”

Bjayou is said to be ‘hugely disappointed’ at being booted out of the competition. ‘I’m not used to failure,’ he told reporters.