From homelessness to billion dollar exits | Watch 'Our America: In the Black Conversations'
Arlan Hamilton sat down with Dean Forbes, the CEO of billion dollar tech company Forterro.
As a child, Dean Forbes spent two non-consecutive years experiencing homelessness. Now, as the CEO of a billion-dollar tech company, his life looks completely different.
In the fourth episode of "Our America: In The Black Conversations With Arlan Hamilton," Forbes talks about his enterprise, Forterro. The company sells business software products and services and was recently sold to another company, Oracle, for a billion dollars. Outside of his business, Forterro mentors people with similar backgrounds through his other organization, Forbes Family Group.
In both of his companies, Forbes uses his talent in sales, which he has cultivated through prior business ventures, to achieve success.
"I think people ought to have a craft of some kind, and some people's craft is their influence, their charm, their personality," he said. "Some people's core craft is more kind of technical and scientific, and mine was sales. It was a little bit more art and a touch of science, and I was able to improve my ability to... understand people, communicate with people, understand what you need out of something."
Forbes believes that in business, companies need to focus on including marginalized people in their workforce. As a Black man, he has seen the structural inequities that contribute to business inequality, and he wants to use his influence and platform to address this.
"I always try and bring people back to in those moments, as a leader [and] to say, 'I want a talent pool that comes from vast and varied backgrounds,' because a talent pool that comes from vast and varied backgrounds thinks differently, you have more perspective in that talent pool," Forbes explained. "Serving these communities, elevating these people and having them come into the workplace and contribute positively, it helps all of us."
Watch episode 4 of "Our America: In the Black Conversations" with Arlan Hamilton and Dean Forbes now in the video player above or wherever you stream this station on Roku, Apple TV, FireTV or Google TV.
Nzinga Blake, Luke Richards and Alexis Johnson-Fowlkes contributed to this report.
