Peter Jones has remained a regular panelist on the UK programme Dragon's Den since it began in 2005.
Jones is a British entrepreneur and investor whose business interests have included telecommunications, technology, retail and leisure. He was part of the original Dragon lineup and continued appearing as other investors joined and left the programme. His tall stature, business-focused questioning and interest in scalable companies became familiar features of the series.
The original panel was not permanent: Doug Richard and Rachel Elnaugh left after the early series, while later replacements included investors such as Theo Paphitis, Deborah Meaden and others. That turnover can make it easy to confuse the longest-serving investor with the earliest panelists who later departed.
Jones is also known for work outside television. He founded or invested in businesses across several sectors and has written about entrepreneurship. On Dragon's Den, his role is not to act as a judge awarding a prize; he decides independently whether a proposed investment makes commercial sense and whether the entrepreneur’s terms are acceptable.