Rags to riches story of twice homeless man becoming multimillionaire entrepreneur, Dean Forbes has topped a list celebrating influential black Britons. Forbes has now been named number one on the Powerlist 2025, after being number two last year. Forbes overtak3s the place of British Vogue editor-in-chief Edward Enninful at the head of the list.

Dean Forbes,  who grew up in a single-parent family on a housing estate in Lewisham living with his disabled mum, after failing to make it as a professional footballer, began his career in a call centre, but his entrepreneurial skills made him the boss of several software companies. He worked his way up from “abject poverty” on an estate in south-east London to become CEO of Forterro, a Swedish software firm.

He said his mum taught him and his two brothers to “raise our expectations”, “never to be victims” and not dwell on misfortunes.

However, despite becoming homeless twice as a teenager, he and his family always saw these as temporary challenges to overcome.

He said, his failure as a key moment in his eventual success, because it made him more determined. “ Thanks to that disappointment and rejection, it put me on this path which is beyond my wildest dreams” he further said.

He has been borrowing money to “keep up appearances” with friends like then-footballer Rio Ferdinand who were being “paid well”, but he was eventually left with an £88, 000 debt. To repay that debt, he got a job in a Motorola call centre, and he quickly worked his way up. He moved to a software firm called Primavera which he helped build up, and made his first millions after it was sold to Oracle, he has taken an equity stake.

Forbes moved from there to being CEO of two software firms, KDS and CoreHR. Each time taking equity stakes  and making millions. His equity stake in Forterro, which he said was firm which makes more than €300M (£250m) in revenue per year and earnings of €130m.

He was able to buy his mum a home, and his children “ have never had to deal with anything I had to deal with” in relation to poverty. He wanted to inspire and give opportunities to others who have not started out with advantages in life.

Forbes and his wife Danielle set up the Forbes Family Group, a philanthropic organisation for people in underserved communities.

Forbes said he was growing up the only black people he could see who were successful seemed to be in entertainment, sport or doing unsavoury things in criminal gangs.