In Dragon's Den, Touker Suleyman joined the UK panel in 2015 after Piers Linney departed.
Suleyman is a British-Turkish Cypriot entrepreneur whose business interests have included fashion, retail and manufacturing. He became known in particular for rescuing and developing fashion brands, including Hawes & Curtis and Ghost. His experience in clothing and retail brought a different emphasis to pitches involving consumer brands and high-street distribution.
Piers Linney appeared as a Dragon from 2013 to 2015. Suleyman replaced him as the programme introduced a new permanent investor for the thirteenth series. Suleyman subsequently became one of the show's familiar faces and was regularly associated with practical questions about margins, manufacturing and sales channels.
The timing can be confused with later appointments. Tej Lalvani joined in 2017, while Steven Bartlett joined in 2022. Richard Farleigh was a guest Dragon in the first series, so he belongs to an earlier phase of the programme's history.