Lord Alan Sugar is an English entrepreneur, businessman and television personality. Hailing from East London, he is famous for working his way up from his relatively humble beginnings. Lord Alan first went into business selling products such as cigarette lighters, intercoms and TV aerials. He now boasts an estimated fortune of £730m, ranking 59th in the Sunday Times Rich List 2009.

Lord Alan Sugar is an English entrepreneur, businessman and television personality. Hailing from East London, he is famous for working his way up from his relatively humble beginnings. Lord Alan first went into business selling products such as cigarette lighters, intercoms and TV aerials. He now boasts an estimated fortune of £730m, ranking 59th in the Sunday Times Rich List 2009.

Lord Alan founded his electronics company Amstrad (an acronym of Alan Michael Sugar Trading) in 1968. 1985 saw a major breakthrough with the launch of the PCW8256 word processor, which although made of very cheap components, retailed at over three hundred pounds. At its peak Amstrad achieved a stock market valuation of £1.2 billion, but the nineties proved a troubled time and in 1997 Amstrad divided into Betacom and Viglen. In 2007 it was announced that broadcaster BskyB had agreed to buy Amstrad for approximately £125m.

In June 1991, Lord Alan teamed up with Terry Venables to buy Tottenham Hotspur Football Club. His reign at the club was not short of controversy. His purely business approach to football made him unpopular with Tottenham fans and his decision to sack Venables the night before the 2001 FA Cup final did not help to improve relations. Sugar later said, "I felt as though I'd killed Bambi." Lord Alan lasted nine years as Chairman of the club, selling his majority stake to leisure group ENIC in 2001.

Lord Alan was knighted in 2000 for services to business. He also holds two honorary Doctorates of Science degrees, awarded in 1988 by City University and in 2005 by Brunel University.

In 2005, Lord Alan became the star of BBC reality show, The Apprentice. Based on the US version starring business mogul Donald Trump, the purpose of the show is to find a new "apprentice" to employ within Lord Alan's network of companies. The show has recently completed its fifth series and is as popular as ever, partially due to Lord Alan's straightforward demeanour and no-bars-held feedback. In 2006, he was voted as the seventh Scariest Celebrity on Television in a Radio Times poll.

Lord Alan is a philanthropist for the charity, Jewish Care. In 2005 he appeared on a celebrity special of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, teaming up with Jeremy Beadle to raise money for Children with Leukaemia and Great Ormond Street Hospital. In 2009 Lord Alan also appeared in a television advertisement for The Learning and Skills Council, discussing the importance of apprenticeships.

On 5th June 2009 it was reported that Lord Alan had been offered a peerage by Prime Minister, Gordon Brown as part of a new enterprise role in his government. He had previously donated £200,000 to the Labour Party in 2001.