Ironically, Dean’s road to success began with disappointment, as he failed to realise his early ambitions as a footballer. That disappointment was a blessing in disguise. An early business grounding first at Motorola led Dean to a leadership role at software firm Primavera Systems where he ran the company’s operation across Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific; a role which saw him grow the business substantially and ultimately through to its sale to Oracle. Following the sale, Dean was asked to lead worldwide sales and marketing for a related division at Oracle making him the youngest vice president at Oracle for nearly 30 years. While at Oracle, Dean was asked by leading venture capital firm Accel to join KDS, a Paris headquartered SaaS company, where he later became CEO. After seven strong years, KDS was acquired by American Express (GBT) in a deal which at the time was the largest software deal in Amex GBT’s history.

At the end of 2016, Dean accepted the role of CEO at CoreHR, a human resources software company. Dean delivered three strong years of growth and profitability. He led CoreHR to be acquired by the UK’s largest privately owned software company The Access Group in the UK’s largest private to private Human Capital Management (HCM) M&A deal.

Following the deal, Dean took the role of President at the Access Group, integrating CoreHR into Access Group’s HR technology business and leading a team of over 1,000 employees. In early 2021, Dean became CEO of Forterro, a group of ERP software companies that serve SMEs in Europe, North America and around the world.

Dean’s story is testament to what’s possible when you define your goals and put your mind, body and soul into achieving them; especially when you’re able to build fantastic and enterprising teams around you who share your energy and vision.

At The Forbes Family Group, founded in 2020, Dean’s focus is to support the entrepreneurs the Group backs and invests behind. He is also an active mentor within the Group’s Project Ten initiative and on hand to advise the Group’s leadership team. Dean is passionate about social mobility and supporting those with similar backgrounds to his own.