Peter Jones

Biography

 Peter Jones grew up in Maidenhead and attended Desborough School there and, subsequently, The Windsor Boys' School. In a newspaper health quiz he said that he trained to be a tennis coach in his teens, and still played when he could Businesses He set up a computer business where he made PCs under his own brand. In his mid twenties, he opened a cocktail bar in Windsor based on the Tom Cruise film Cocktail. However, he lost £200,000 after deciding to sell it. In an interview with The Times, Jones once said his computer business failed when he was in his twenties, and he was forced to give up his three-bedroom home in Bray  and his cars, and had to move back in with his parents. He then joined Siemens Nixdorf. After Siemens, he set up his next venture Phones International Group in April 1998. In the summer of 2005, Jones, together with Theo Paphitis, a fellow panellist Dragons' Den, bought gift experience company Red Letter Days from another fellow panellist Rachel Elnaugh, under whose ownership it had collapsed.Jones founded other businesses between 2004 and 2008, including Wines4Business.com, an online retailer specialising in the sale of wine and champagne to corporate clients and Celsius, a specialist recruitment business.

Research Interest

 In 2009, Jones founded the Peter Jones Enterprise Academy (PJEA, formerly NEA) to teach entrepreneurial capabilities within the UK. PJEA has several campuses throughout the UK including Amersham, Sheffield, Manchester and Oxford. In November 2013, it was reported that a new Peter Jones Enterprise Academy was to be opened in Leamington through Warwickshire College. Pupils will be taught how to enhance a company or key skills in becoming a successful entrepreneur. The academy will offer the BTEC Level 3 Enterprise and Entrepreneurship at both its Leamington and Rugby campuses. According to his website, some of his investments in businesses that have appeared on Dragons' Den include luxury lifestyle and culture Wonderland Magazine, Square Mile International, which provides data services for marinas and was later sold to BT, contemporary circus company The Generating Company, Concentrate Design, which makes products claimed to help pupils concentrate at school, iTeddy and Reggae Reggae Sauce.He owns a TV production company called Peter Jones TV, and has several property investments (his nine properties include a Portuguese villa that he bought from DJ Chris Evans and a property in Beverly Hills, California). Jones sold part of Phones International Group, Wireless Logic, for £38 million in 2011 retaining the Data Select part. In 2013, Jones became the owner and chief executive of Jessops in the United Kingdom. On 6 August 2017, it was announced that Jones and his Dragon's Den and Red Letter Days partner, Theo Paphitis were almost scammed by an accountant who forged cheques over a two-month period. Judge Joanna Greenberg QC warned the accountant at Wood Green Court that “this was a serious offence, a breach of trust over considerable time. Custody is the most likely outcome.”