Touker Suleyman: The Retailer Who Rescued Two Brands
Touker Suleyman
Touker Suleyman was born on 4 August 1953 and moved to Britain as a child from Cyprus, going on to build a career in clothing manufacturing and retail long before television found him.
His breakthrough came through acquisitions rather than founding brands from scratch. In 2001 his company Low Profile Group bought the struggling shirt maker Hawes and Curtis, and a year later he added the fashion label Ghost to the group.
Turning around Hawes and Curtis and Ghost
Both labels were in difficulty when Suleyman bought them, and he rebuilt each around a smaller, more disciplined retail footprint rather than chasing rapid expansion, a conservative approach that carries over directly into how he questions pitches in the Den.
That instinct for protecting margin over growth at any cost has made him one of the more cautious dragons at the table, often the one asking exactly how a founder plans to survive a bad season rather than a good one.
Eleven years in the Den
Suleyman joined Dragons' Den in its thirteenth series in 2015, making roughly sixty investments in developing businesses over the years that followed.
In June 2026 he announced he was stepping down from the panel after eleven years, with his final episodes airing later that year while the show brought in guest dragons, including former footballer Gary Neville, ahead of naming a permanent replacement for the following series.