"Shark" on ABC's "Shark Tank"
As the son of a United Nations International Labor Organization (ILO) official, Kevin O'Leary had the opportunity to live and be educated in Cambodia, Cyprus, Tunisia, Ethiopia, France and Switzerland. He attended the University of Waterloo where, in 1977, he received an Honors Bachelors degree in environmental studies and psychology. He also attended the Richard Ivey School of Business, where he received his MBA in 1980.
After working as an assistant product manager at Nabisco Brands, O'Leary left to pursue a career in television production and became a founding partner in Special Event Television, an independent production company that produced original sports programming such as "The Original Six," "Don Cherry's Grapevine" and "Bobby Orr and the Hockey Legends."
O'Leary co-founded SoftKey Software Products in 1986. With him as its president, SoftKey was the first software company to apply the principles of consumer goods marketing to the software industry. SoftKey grew quickly as the price of personal computers declined and millions of North American families began to buy software for family education and entertainment. In January 1994, SoftKey became a catalyst of consolidation in the software industry, raising over $1 billion in a series of debt and equity financings and completing the first trans-border, three-way pooling, merging with Spinnaker Software and WordStar International. As a result of this merger, the company moved its headquarters to Boston, Massachusetts. In late 1995 SoftKey acquired Compton's New Media and The Learning Company, and in early 1996 completed the acquisition of the Minnesota Educational Computer Company. In late 1997 and early 1998, the company acquired three more of its competitors, Creative Wonders, Mindscape and Broderbund, making SoftKey the world leader in the development of educational, reference and home productivity software and the world's second largest consumer software company, with annual sales over $800 million, 2000 employees and subsidiaries in 15 countries. In 1996 SoftKey changed its name to The Learning Company. In early May 1999, The Mattel Toy Company acquired The Learning Company for $4.2 billion.
In 2003 O'Leary became co-investor and a director in Storage Now, a leading developer of climate controlled storage facilities. Through a series of development projects and acquisitions, Storage Now was operating in 11 cities, serving such companies as Merck and Pfizer, when it was acquired by the In Storage REIT in March 2007 for $110 million.
In July of 2007 O'Leary became a founding investor and Director of Boston-based Stream Global Services Inc., a publicly traded (symbol SGS) company focused on the growing out sourcing business services market.
O'Leary is the Chairman of O'Leary Funds and the Manager of the publicly traded family of O'Leary Global Equity and Income Funds. He also serves on the board of The Richard Ivey School of Business. A member of the Boston's 107-year-old Hamilton Trust, he is the entrepreneur/investor co-host for the Discovery Channel's "Project Earth" series that explores innovative ways man could reverse global warming by implementing large scale geo-engineering infrastructure projects.
O'Leary is published by Random House and is the author of the best-selling book, Cold Hard Truth and upcoming Men, Women and Money.
You can follow O'Leary on Twitter at @kevinolearytv.
PERSONAL INFORMATION
HOMETOWN Montreal, Quebec, Canada
BIRTHDATE July 9
