Maxine Gordon catches up with The Apprentice runner-up and finds out what Kristina did next.

KRISTINA Grimes admits she was floored when she lost The Apprentice final - and the chance of a £100,000-a-year dream job with Alan Sugar.

The 36-year-old former pharmaceutical sales manager from Harrogate was so sure she had won the competition she told her family to not even consider the prospect of her losing.

"It took me two weeks to get over it," admits Kristina, whose story of how she was a teenage mum but put herself through university and built a decent life for herself and son, Graeme, warmed the nation's heart.

"I put all my hopes on winning The Apprentice. Eighteen years ago, people told me I'd ruined my life. Winning The Apprentice would have been affirmation that I hadn't. Not to win was like being kicked in the teeth again."

And she admits she did not take the news well. "I ran off. I escaped out of the building. Everybody was texting me and phoning me, really, really worried."

Kristina managed to pull herself together to take part that evening in an interview with Adrian Chiles which was broadcast immediately after The Apprentice final.

But what we did not see was Kristina and Graeme crying in front of the audience - those scenes were edited out. "I'm tough, but also a big softie," she confessed.

Fast forward six weeks, and the only tears horse-loving Kristina are shedding are ones of happiness.

To say she's fallen on her feet would be the understatement of the year.

"I had 100 job offers after The Apprentice - including one from Sir Alan!" she revealed. After careful consideration, she's taken a top post with leading property company Dandara as an investment sales director - on a salary which beats the one snapped up by Apprentice winner Simon Ambrose, "With hindsight, I'm really glad Sir Alan didn't choose me. I was gutted at the time, but I know what I've got on my plate now is much greater than if I'd come first."

Although living down south at the moment, Kristina still returns to Harrogate regularly and wants to buy a house in North Yorkshire, where she can keep one or two horses.

She said: "Harrogate is so beautiful. It's right on the doorstep of the countryside. I am a country girl, but I like the nightlife, the restaurants and the people - the cosmopolitan and rural life."

Besides finding herself a new job, Kristina has been caught up in a media frenzy in recent weeks which has led to numerous TV and radio interviews as well as feature spreads in national newspapers and magazines, including Hello!

Most of the time, she admits, it has been fun, although she was distraught by allegations in a national tabloid about her love life. She said: "It was so untruthful and I got upset. It made me out to be a right slut. Because I got pregnant very, very young, I was always careful not to embark on many relationships. People would say I was choosy and I should let my hair down. But I've never been like that, so when somebody writes that I was bonking all night and had several men coming and going it really hurt. I'd spent 18 years trying to get rid of that image."

Kristina bears no hard feelings towards Sir Alan. She and Simon both worked for him for six months before he picked the eventual winner - which made the final result all the more galling - but has nothing but praise for the Amstrad tycoon.

"I really liked him," she said. "He worked at my pace. He is very direct and I like that. And he does care. When I experienced the horrible press, he sent me an email asking: are you OK?'"

Of her former Apprentice colleagues, she keeps in touch with Simon, Tre, Naomi and Natalie.

As for Katie Hopkins, her arch rival on the show, who described her as a "snake in the grass" and "too orange", Kristina has only sympathy.

She said: "She's screwed up and she's not happy. I got her number from day one, and nobody else did. I mistrusted her and I didn't even know what she was saying off camera."

Kristina says she is enjoying her time in the spotlight, but won't lose sight of her true goal.

"I've had lots of silly TV offers, to do things like I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here, and I know I could choose to keep my face in the limelight or do the thing I set out to do. At the end of the day, this is about my career.

"With this new job, I can grow things as big as I like. It's perfect for me and I'm loving it."


Kristina's Apprentice highlights

Week 3 - 11/4/07
Kristina sparks controversy when she and other members of all-girls team Stealth launch a Kissagram business to earn cash.

"Sometimes, needs must," she told the cameras.

Sir Alan Sugar was not impressed. "It doesn't sound great to me," he said later in the boardroom. "It sounds like another, older profession I've heard of."

Week 4 - 18/4/07
Kristina proved she wasn't averse to the hard sell - pressing lollipops into children's hands at London Zoo then asking the parents to pay for them. Her team won by £10.

Week 5 - 25/4/07
Kristrina's team, Stealth, easily won a task to sell photographs at an art gallery.

Kristina's performance prompted opponent Natalie Wood, who was fired by Sir Alan, to say of her: "She's ruthless but not nasty at all. She's totally driven and the one person in there who's playing a good game.

"Kristina's clever - a true businesswoman, exceptionally driven and a fantastic project manager."

Week 6 - 2/5/07
Kristina spills the beans on former army lieutenant and team leader Paul's "personal relationship" with Katie to save herself in the boardroom after attempts to sell cheap processed cheese on a market in France end in disaster.

Week 7 - 9/5/07
Kristina squirms as her revelation the previous week about Katie and Paul's relationship is exposed - but it is team leader Adam Hosker who is fired after a task to buy ten products at the lowest price goes wrong.

Week 8 - 16/5/07
Project manager Ghazal Asif has some harsh words for Kristina after becoming the ninth person to be fired. Ghazal was on the losing side with arch-rivals Katie and Kristina in a task to design and market a new brand of trainer.

Afterwards, she said: "I absolutely think Kristina is more two-faced than Katie. But I feel sorry for her - if I was 35 and still relying on reality TV for a job, I'd be pretty miserable."

Week 10 - 30/5/07
Kristina's attempts to sell a chocolate fountain and floor cleaner on live shopping TV go disastrously wrong.

She failed to switch the cleaner on properly, smeared dirt on the surface she was cleaning and muttered "Jesus Christ" live on air, before excusing herself.

But it was Naomi Lay who was fired.

Week 11 - 6/6/07
Following a series of tough job interviews, the final four are whittled down to three when Sir Alan fires Lohit Kalburgi.

Sir Alan then tells Kristina's arch-rival Katie she is through to the final - before, in a dramatic twist, Katie rules herself out, saying she is not ready to make the move from Exeter to London.

"I don't want to make a fool of you or me," the mum-of-two told Sir Alan.

"I think it's more important to get the courtesy to have my plans in place, so I'll have to stand down."

Week 12 - 13/6/07
Kristina's hopes of winning The Apprentice are dashed after Sir Alan picks rival Simon Ambrose instead.

The Harrogate single mum later tells The Press that when she realised she had lost, it was "like being kicked in the teeth".

But she says it all worked out for the best in the end.

She had 100 job offers following The Apprentice - including one from Sir Alan - and has accepted a top post with leading property company Dandara as an investment sales director, on a salary bigger than she'd have been on had she won.


Profile

KRISTINA Grimes is a 36-year-old Harrogate single mum who proved a tough-but-fair approach is the way to (almost) win The Apprentice.

On herself: "Extremely competitive, ambitious, determined, but really loves life."

Pre-Apprentice job: Pharmaceutical sales manager.

Post-Apprentice job: investment sales director with property company Dandara.

Background: Kristina fell pregnant at the age of 17 while she was living in rural Ireland. She was packed off to a convent to have her baby, but refused to give the child up. Moving to England, she raised her son, Graeme, alone, put herself through university, and worked her way up the career ladder.


Kristina Grimes on...

Herself: "I'm a workaholic. I'm quite happy to work seven days a week, 12 hours a day."

Sir Alan: "When you are in the room with him, he sets your brain alight."

Simon: "He was a more typical apprentice, he didn't have a huge career history."

Katie: "She wants to be a contentious character, but she has upset her family greatly."

Losing: "I was gutted. I am extremely competitive."