Lenny Veltman

Leonid "Lenny" Veltman (born 1967) was a contestant on the NBC reality television show The Apprentice 5 with Donald Trump.
Biography
Veltman was born in Baku, Azerbaijan. He grew up in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, where he was in the Soviet army for two years. He describes these years as a highlight of his life. When he was 24 he moved to the United States with his wife and child. He knew no English but started as a janitor and eventually moved up to being owner of a Russian restaurant. He also became a stock broker. He now has his own medical trading company and lives in East Brunswick Township, New Jersey with his wife Marina and son Eugene.
Time on The Apprentice
Appeared on Donald Trump's The Apprentice 5 and was fired after seven weeks. He was the center of some controversy when he criticized fellow candidates for skipping tasks in honor of the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah. He pointed out that even though he's Jewish he still worked hard on the task to support his team.
He was eventually fired after he became project manager for a task working with Ace Hardware and The Boys and Girls Club of America. His team lost because the executives felt that the room that they designed didn't have enough variety other than just musical instruments which would be expensive to replace if they broke. Reasons Lenny was fired was because of poor leadership and failure to properly find out what the executives wanted during their meeting.
After Lee and Sean became the final two, all of the contestants were brought back so that Lee and Sean could create new teams for the final task. Lee picked Lenny, and Lenny influenced many of Lee's picks on other candidates. Notably, he convinced Lee to pick Pepi, the second fired, for his team. Donald and Carolyn found the decision strange.

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu