The Apprentice winner honoured by the Queen

Tim Campbell, winner of the first series of BBC TV's The Apprentice, has received an MBE in the Queen's 2012 New Year Honours list.

The businessman, who since his victory on the show starring Lord Sugar has gone on to set up a charity to help young people start their own business, was given the going "for services to enterprise culture".

Posting on Twitter, Lord Sugar said: "Congratulations to Tim Campbell the first winner of The Apprentice for his well deserved MBE. Well done!"

As well as running the Bright Ideas Trust, Campbell is the training ambassador for Mayor of London Boris Johnson and has supported BusinessZone.co.uk's small business competition The Pitch.

Other entrepreneurs in the New Year Honours list include a CBE for Denise Coates, chief executive of gambling website bet365 and Paul Adrian Smith, founder of Celador Entertainment, the creators of TV quiz show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? and an OBE for Mary Veronica Mead, co-founder of food brand Yeo Valley.

Other figures from the enterprise world who received awards include an OBE for George Derbyshire, the former chief executive of National Federation of Enterprise Agencies (now known as the National Enterprise Network) and an MBE for Ian Robertson, ex-chief executive of the National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship.

One of more controversial gongs went to Gerald Ronson, who was imprisoned in 1990 for his involvement in the Guinness share trading scandal. He has since gone on to achieve success as the founder of property giant Heron International and raise millions of pounds for charity. He is also the uncle of musician Mark Ronson.

The full 2012 New Year Honours list: