Peter Jones (entrepreneur)

Peter Jones (born 18 March, 1966) is a British businessman with interests in mobile telecommunications, television, media, leisure and property.

Biography

Peter Jones attended the Windsor Boys' School where he studied A-Levels in Economics, Biology and Geography.

Jones' business career began at the age of 17; a gifted junior county tennis player, after completing the Lawn Tennis Association’s coaching examinations, he set up his first company, a successful tennis academy at a local club. His second venture was a computer business where he manufactured PCs under his own brand and in his mid twenties opened a cocktail bar based on the Tom Cruise film "Cocktail" on which he lost £200,000 after deciding to sell it. In his late twenties he lost his computer business due to customers failing to pay him. He was forced to give up his four-bedroom home in Bray, his BMW and Porsche cars and move back in with his parents after living in an office for six months.cite news|url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/money/article2158112.ece|title=Tycoon’s costly bid to outdo Tom Cruise|publisher=Sunday Times|date=2007-07-29|accessdate=2008-07-21] He then joined Siemens Nixdorf, and became head of the PC Business in the UK the same year at only 28, the youngest ever head of a business unit.

After working for Siemens Nixdorf he worked in the telecoms market for 12 months and made enough money to set-up his next venture Phones International Group in April 1998. The firm experienced explosive growth with revenue totalling £14 million by the end of the first year and £44 million by the end of the second. The company was one of the fastest growing businesses in Europe. Group turnover for 2005/2006 was in excess of £150 million. The group counts every leading brand in the wireless communications industry among its business partners, whether as a supplier, customer or collaborator. Jones is worth an estimated £150 million.

Television career

Jones came to public prominence in the UK for his appearance on BBC Two's "Dragons' Den."

After coming up with a TV show idea called The Inventor, which he took to Simon Cowell to see whether he would be interested in partnering with him, he managed to sell the idea to the ABC Network in America. When it aired in March 2006, it became a No. 1 show for ABC in America - the network's biggest success for a Thursday primetime slot in years. Jones also featured as a judge in his own creation on ABC's "American Inventor" - co-produced by Fremantle North America, Cowell's SyCo and Jones's "Peter Jones Television" company.

After signing a "Golden Handcuffs" deal with ITV to appear as their new "face" of business programming, on September 21, 2006 Jones appeared on GMTV to talk about "Dragons' Den." and his new ITV1 show "Tycoon" - solely produced by the "Peter Jones Television." company [ [http://www.peterjones.tv Peter | Jones ] ] On June 27, 2007, after just 2 episodes of "Tycoon" had been broadcast, ITV announced that it would be moved from the prime time slot of 9-10pm on Tuesdays due to bad ratings, even though it got 2.1 million viewers which was more than the UK premiere of The Apprentice and Dragons Den when they both aired in 2005. The series returned on Monday, July 9, 2007 as a 30-minute format for the 10pm slot. [ cite news
url = http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/broadcasting/a63023/itv-yanks-tycoon-from-prime-slot.html
title = ITV yanks 'Tycoon' from prime slot
date=2007-06-27
author = Neil Wilkes
publisher = Digital Spy]

Jones returned to "Dragons Den" for the sixth UK series, starting July 2008. He is known for his regular conflicts in the den with fellow dragon, Duncan Bannatyne. On one occasion, he was so disgusted with Duncan for unprofessionally undercutting his bid he responded with "You've just put a guy on the bloody edge here and you've just completely been a sly little shit"

When appearing on the Dragons Den, Jones likes to wear extravagant socks with his elegant suit, that was designed by him, as he is a great believer in dressing well.

Peter Jones took over from Gordon Ramsay as the face of BT Business. The campaign features in a TV advertisement [ cite news
url = http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/tv/article1109659.ece
title = HE terrifies wannabe entrepreneurs on hit TV show Dragon’s Den
date=2008-04-30
author = Nadia Brooks
publisher = The Sun] alongside the
Gremlins, who attack the whole office leading to an IT meltdown. Thecampaign announced the fact that BT Business offers 24-hour IT andCommunications support for all business customers.

Other businesses

In the summer of 2005, Jones teamed up with another Dragons' Den star, Theo Paphitis, to buy the gift experience company Red Letter Days from fellow panellist Rachel Elnaugh, under whose ownership it had collapsed.

Peter also invested in many small businesses between 2004/8, including firms like [http://www.wines4business.com Wines4Business.com] , an online retailer specialising in the sale of wine and champagne to corporate clients, as well as [http://www.celcius.co.uk Celcius] , a specialist recruitment business. He has many investments from the BBC show Dragon's Den including [http://www.wonderlandmagazine.com Wonderland] , a new luxury lifestyle magazine, Square Mile International, providing data services for marinas (which he sold to BT), [http://www.generatingcompany.co.uk The Generating Company] , a contemporary circus company, i-Teddy and Reggae Reggae Sauce among others.Fact|date=August 2008

He owns a TV production company called Peter Jones TV, and his business portfolio also includes a range of property investments (his nine properties include a Portuguese villa that he bought from DJ Chris Evans and a mansion in Beverly Hills, California).

Personal life

Divorced, he lives with his girlfriend Tara Capp and their three children Natalia, Isabella, and Tallulah, in a home in Buckinghamshire. He also has two children with his ex-wife – Annabelle and William – who live with their mother in Salisbury.

An admitted car freak, his first car was an Alfa Romeo Alfasud, while his business car is presently a Maybach 57.

He is known for his height and came 4th in the "star in a reasonably priced car" on the motoring programme, Top Gear and was told on air by Jeremy Clarkson that if he lost a bit of weight (he is 17 stone and 6 foot, 7inch) he would be the fastest celebrity ever to have appeared on the show.

On the 12th August 2008 he was challenged by The Sun Newspaper to sit a 90 minute A-Level examination in Business Studies [ cite news
url = http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1566810.ece
title = Testing time for Dragon brain
date=2008-08-12
author = Caroline Iggulden
publisher = The Sun] . With nothing to gain and a lot of dignity to lose he accepted the challenge and got an 'A' without having any background on the two-year course.

References

External links

* [http://www.peterjones.tv/ Peter Jones - Official Site]
* [http://www.bbc.co.uk/dragonsden/thedragons/peter_jones.shtml Dragons' Den Biography]
* [http://www.tycoon.com Tycoon]
* [http://www.celcius.co.uk Celcius]
* [http://www.Wines4Business.com Wines4Business]
* [http://abc.go.com/primetime/americaninventor/bios/peter_jones.html American Inventor]
* [http://www.phonesintgroup.com/peterjones.html Phones International Group]
* [http://www.redletterdays.co.uk/AboutUs Red Letter Days - Gift Experience Voucher Company part owned by Peter Jones ]
* [http://www.forgottenchildren.org.uk/ Forgotten Children Charity]
* [http://www.peterjones.tv/forums/ Peter Jones Community Forums]

*imdb name|id=1814229|name=Peter Jones