By Andrew Cave Published: 6:34PM GMT 08 Feb 2009  James Caan is one of Britain's most successful entrepreneurs of recent years  Take the investment he talks about most – a £5,000 punt through the Dragons' Den TV programme on an anti-bullying initiative championed by nine-year-old schoolboy James Buckley. Or the touch-feely success of another of his investment picks, doggie treadmill company Fit Fur Life – an entrepreneurial idea spurned by his harder-nosed fellow judges. Then there's his double "P" buzzphrase: "passion for people".  "I want passion," declares Mr Caan, 48. "To me, passion is having the character to do something about it once the emotion has gone."  It's a conviction that permeates his charity work, funding the NSPCC and a school in his birth city of Lahore, Pakistan.  And it's the driver behind his appointment by Business Secretary Lord Mandelson last week as co-chair of the Government's Ethnic Minorities Business Task Force.  "You have to have conviction and belief in what you are doing in order to be successful," he says. "Ethnic minority-owned businesses contribute a very impressive £30bn-£40bn to the UK economy each year, and they're one of the key areas of the economy that's actually growing.  "There could be as many of 100,000 new ethnic minority businesses created over the next 12 months alone.  "Part of the task force's job will be to make sure that government support is communicated to the right people in the right way, encouraging these entrepreneurs as well as signposting very practical government packages that are in place to help them."  Well yes, but what exactly is Mr Caan's passion and burgeoning business brand?  First and foremost, it seems to be a passion to succeed. His new book: The Real Deal, recounts how his textile entrepreneur father, who took a two-year-old baby then called Nazim Khan from Pakistan to London in 1962, later quizzed him about his career plans as a teenager.  "So you're's going to university then?" Mr Khan asked his son, who replied that his deepest desire was to start his own business.  "Doing what," came the reply. "I don't know yet," said the young would-be tycoon.  "I want to be like you, Dad. I want to do what you did and I want to prove to you that I can do it."  He duly did, setting up recruitment company Alexander Mann Group in 1985, aged 25, and building it to a turnover of £150m and operations in 150 counties before selling the business for £95m in 2002.  His second venture, executive head-hunting firm Humana International, co-founded with business partner Doug Bugie in 1993 similarly grew to 147 offices in 30 countries in six years. The duo sold it in 1999.  Then, after the Mann sale, Mr Caan (he changed his name after having business cards printed with the new alias for a joke but quickly found it opened doors with potential clients) decided to retire and enjoy his riches but that didn't last long.  "I bought a yacht and a house in the south of France and started playing golf, but you can only enjoy that sort of thing for so long," he says.  "At the age of 42, I looked back on my life and wondered if I could have done things any differently and the one thing I regretted was not going to university so I went to Harvard Business School and picked up my education."  Mr Caan found himself something of an oddity at Havard. "There were 123 people on my course and they were all CEOs of global businesses, except me," he recalls.  "But I was the only one who was an entrepreneur. The others were all corporate executives."  He realised that this was what he enjoyed doing most so he returned to London to set up private equity outfit Hamilton Bradshaw.  A year later, he was named one of the 100 most influential Asian people in the UK and in October 2007 he got the call to join Dragons' Den alongside gym clubs tycoon Duncan Bannatyne, technology guru Peter Jones and fellow dragons Deborah Meaden and Theo Paphitis.  He has survived two series and is now filming a third but admits it hasn't always been easy – some of those dragons clearly possess a fearsome bite.  "When you walk into a situation where everybody knows each other, that can actually be quite hard for the new person," he says, admitting that his "passion for people" philosophy differs markedly from that of analytical technocrat Mr Jones.  "My style is quite different from his," Mr Caan says diplomatically. "He gets very into new products and services. I tend to focus more on people.  "I most often invest on the programme in things with Duncan because we are quite similar in the way we look at businesses."  Not that Mr Caan is a soft touch, however. He laughed out loud along with the other dragons when an earnest couple team came on the programme with a revolutionary idea to end all disputes about people encroaching onto their partners' side of the bed.  "It was a bed sheet with a black line drawn down the middle," he giggles. "We were all waiting for them to explain what else it did but that was it. There was just a black line and they had spent three years developing the idea.  The experience reinforced Mr Caan's belief in one of his "rules of success" – prove your product.  Others are about ambition being nothing without passion, having to swim against the tide, making sure that the figures stack up and learning from failure.  Indeed, the entrepreneur, who says he currently has about 25 investments, has backed a few duffers too, including the acquisition of failing sandwich chain Benjys from administrators Deloitte in 2006. Another set of administrators from KPMG were called in the following year.  So what wisdom will he have to offer in his new role? He says he likes Lord Mandelson, supports the Government's attempts to intervene to prevent the recession turning into a depression and believes that what ethnic minority businesses need most is confidence in themselves.  He steers clear of the furore over "British jobs for British workers," saying it's complicated because of European statutes, and he's devoutly anti-protectionist.  His new role, he says, is to encourage would-be entrepreneurs in ethnic communities to have the courage of their convictions to form enterprises out of their passions.  Unless, of course, they involve bed sheets and black lines. So what was his eventual verdict on that never-to-be heard-of-again idea?  He smiles. "Let's just say that sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind," he says.  Job Founder of private equity firm Hamilton Bradshaw and Dragons' Den judge  Family Married to Aisha, an artist; two daughters, Hanah and Jemma  Cars 12 classics including a 1962 Maybach, a Rolls Royce Phantom and an Aston Martin Volante that he bought from Sir Elton John  Houses in London and the south of France  Favourite book Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama  Interests sailing on his yacht, skiing, and playing tennis and snooker. Can fly private jets and helicopters.  Has signed up 118 fans to his Facebook page and is a regular on Twitter  Motto "It's your attitude not our aptitude that determines your altitude"
James Caan earned his fortune in recruitment and made his name on TV but he's    not entirely happy to be seen as a ruthless fire-breathing business dragon.