The BBC television series Dragon's Den has made James Caan, founder and CEO of private equity firm Hamilton Bradshaw, into a household face and name, just as his philanthropy has been expanding.

Caan arrived in the UK from Pakistan at the age of two in the early 1960s. Since deciding to go it alone and not join his father's leather business in Brick Lane, Caan has built and sold global human resources businesses, become a champion for entrepreneurship, is consulted by the government on enterprise issues, set up his own charitable foundation and written his best-selling autobiography, called The Real Deal.

He left school at 16 yet took the Harvard Business School advanced management programme at 40, and his growing philanthropic activity has a strong emphasis on children and education.

The James Caan Foundation was established in 2006 to help deprived children in both the western and developing world. Caan has backed the NSPCC's full stop campaign, built a school giving free lessons in his native Lahore in partnership with a local charity, and is a member of the Prince's Trust Enterprise Fellowship.

Since his first appearance on the Dragon's Den, Caan has invested more than £900,000 in 14 of the businesses pitched by their founders on the programme.