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Apprentice star Jennifer learned her trade at school

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By Sarah Neville
Thursday Apr 3 2008

THE principal of Apprentice candidate Jennifer Maguire’s former school said school is where she got her enterprising spirit. Dubliner Jennifer (27) got through to the final 14 of the BBC's hunt for an apprentice for business mogul Alan Sugar.

The woman is already a successful marketing consultant with a fashion agency in Bristol with only her Leaving Cert behind her.

Principal of St Mary's Secondary in Baldoyle Siobhan O'Connell said Jennifer had her confidence and enterprising spirit even in her school days.

“All of the kids did mini-company,” said Ms O'Connell. “She got her enterprising from here.” Ms O’Connell explains that from the mid-1980s the school put an emphasis on entrepreneurial thinking and business studies.

They were involved in an initiative called Young Ireland which was part of the buy Irish campaign.

Jennifer and the other girls all started up their own companies which must have given the ambitious girl a taste for business.

FOCUS

After finishing the Leaving Certificate, she headed straight to New York where she started waiting tables. But it wasn't long before the entrepreneur got into advertising sales and her career has rocketed since. Last year, Jennifer's old alma mater won an award recognising their business focus.

“We won the Fingal County inaugural Enterprise in School Spirit award,” she said, adding that it recognised the last 20 years of involvement with the council's mini-company competition.

“We have lots of budding entrepreneurs in the school,” said Ms O' Connell. “A number of our past pupils are CEOs.”

The teacher remembers Jennifer as a lively girl in school. “She was a lovely girl, very dramatic in school,” she said.

SURPRISED

“We did know she was in America and in the UK,” said Ms O' Connell, who had no idea that Jennifer was going to be in the show, but she was “not surprised.” Jennifer was very involved in musicals in the school and Ms O'Connell is certain that the experience of performing on stage has given her the confidence to succeed in the show.

“We always have musicals in the school – it gives them great confidence.” St Mary's is a relatively small secondary school with just 250 pupils and Ms O'Connell said she knows every pupil's name.

“Because it's so small here, it's a great nurturing ground,” she said.

“Any talent will be brought out.”

The school is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year with a dinner for several hundred past pupils in Croke Park on April 19, but if Jennifer's success on the Apprentice continues she'll miss the event.

- Sarah Neville