AS a self-proclaimed “rough, tough, cream puff, from New York,” marketing consultant Kimberly Davis was prepared for a fight when she applied for the hardest interview of her life, little did she know a superhero called pants man would be her ticket off this year's series of The Apprentice.

“I really felt vindicated in the end,” Kimberly says of her exit off the BBC One show following the cereal branding task in week five which she project managed. “The audience got to see how bad my team really was. If you look back: firstly, everything I said and accused people of came true and Sir Alan saw it in the end and secondly, every single person on my team was next to go. My team was clearly a much weaker team, which was unfortunate.”

Since leaving the show, Kimberly, who moved to Canary Wharf in 2004, has been quoted as describing the male contestants as “bullies” and after watching her lock horns with stubborn estate agent Philip Taylor, she has a point. With this in mind, I wonder if the 33-year-old thinks there is a touch of poetic justice in it being an all-female final this season.

“I think I was sort of misquoted on that bully thing,” Kimberly explains. “Really, the only guy who was the bully was Philip, he was the only one who really crossed a line in my opinion. I got along for the most part with everybody and I don’t care if it is an all girls or all guys final, I just think the right people have to be in the final.”

The two people in question are licensing development manager Kate Walsh and restaurateur Yasmina Siadatan who will go head to head in the final episode on Sunday, when Sir Alan Sugar will utter those immortal words, “you're fired” for the final time.

Keeping schtum on the outcome, Kimberly, who returns to the screen with the other contestants for the final task, remains diplomatic when I ask who she wants to win: “Kate and Yasmina have very different skills and business styles. I also like them both very much, so it is very hard for me to choose just one. Yasmina is very strong and the most focused person I've ever met. Kate is very diplomatic and can manage any personality. It think it will depend on the role and what Sir Alan needs for his organisation. I wish them both the very best of luck. They were worthy competitors and I'm happy to see the right people go all the way.”

While Kimberly, who is also an accomplished musician and has a BA in Music Management, may have failed to go “all the way” this time, she has managed to take positives away from the experience and turn them to her advantage.

“The main thing I learned and took away from the show was Sir Alan really dislikes marketing people, so I redeveloped my company based around that feedback. I asked myself why does he hate marketing people so much, probably because he has wasted a tremendous amount of money on marketing. So I have restructured my company to help protect companies wasting their money on people that don’t know what they are doing, it's now a marketing purification agency. I can save companies thousands in our first meeting.”

Always a go-getter, Bronx-born Kimberly says she started her career aged just 14 when she began writing for her school paper, using her nous to secure press passes to some of the biggest events in New York and landing interviews with the likes of Andre Agassi and Michael Crawford. At aged 18 she was a marketing assistant at a radio and television station and after graduating from university she went straight into a job as a morning production for a market one radio station in New York City. But it was after making the move to the UK when she was 29 that she finally realised her dream of setting up her own company, Sarsaparilla, none of which, she explains, would have been possible without the help of the East London Small Business Company.

“I always wanted to start up my own company,” she enthuses, “but like many people who have that ambition found myself not knowing where to start and one day I saw a flyer for the East London Small Business Company and gave them a call and thanks to them I have my own company today. I still work with the same business advisor, he is fantastic!

With an upbeat personality that is infectious it's difficult to understand exactly why Sir Alan pointed the finger at Kimberly in the boardroom, but ever the optimist, she insists she has no regrets.

“I did feel that I went at the wrong time, but everybody feels that don’t they? You just have to get over it and get on with things, that's business.”

The final of The Apprentice airs on BBC One on Sunday, June 7, 9pm. For more information about Kimberly and her company visit www.sarsaparillamarketing.com