James Caan CBE

James Caan CBE is one of the UK's most successful entrepreneurs, investors and philanthropists, with a four-decade career building and backing businesses. He is Founder and Chairman of Hamilton Bradshaw, the Mayfair private equity firm through which he invests in founders across the UK, Dubai and the US. To date he has backed and scaled more than 37 businesses and successfully exited 19. Having left school at 16, James founded Alexander Mann in 1985, growing it into a premier international talent solutions provider with revenues exceeding 800 million pounds across 20 countries before his exit in 2002. Between 2007 and 2010 he invested over 1.4 million pounds of his own capital across 14 businesses as a panellist on BBC's Dragons' Den. In 2012 he became Founder and Chairman of Start Up Loans, the UK government-backed scheme that has since supported 28,000 businesses and helped create more than 110,000 jobs. He was awarded a CBE in 2015 for services to entrepreneurship and charity, and supports underprivileged communities in Pakistan through the James Caan Foundation. He now divides his time between Monaco and London.