Kevin O'Leary

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Venture Capitalist, Bestselling Business Author, and Judge on ABC’s Shark Tank

Business Leaders
Entrepreneurs
Founders / CEOs
Reality TV
Business Books
Consumer Trends
Science & Technology

Kevin O'Leary: Biography at a Glance

  • Kevin O'Leary can currently be seen as a shark on the Emmy Award-winning investment reality show Shark Tank.
  • Kevin is a businessman, author, and television personality who founded the software company Softkey, which was acquired by Mattel for over $4 billion.
  • Kevin has since launched O’Leary Ventures, mutual fund company O’Leary Funds, O’Leary Fine Wines, and a bestselling book series on financial literacy.
  • After his extraordinary success, Kevin eventually found himself on television, quickly becoming a sought-after host and personality on a range of shows–including Discovery’s Project Earth and CBC’s Dragons’ Den.

Biography

Kevin O’Leary is an Irish-Canadian businessman, author, and television personality who founded the software company Softkey (later known as The Learning Company), which was acquired by Mattel for over $4 billion.

Kevin has since launched venture capitalist company O’Leary Ventures, mutual fund company O’Leary Funds, O’Leary Fine Wines, and a best-selling book series on financial literacy. He can currently be seen as a shark on the Emmy Award-winning investment reality show Shark Tank.

Kevin was born to a middle-class family in 1954. The combination of Kevin’s mother’s family heritage as merchants and his father’s Irish charisma truly meant that O’Leary was born for business. Kevin learned most of his business intuition from his mother. She taught him key business and financial insights from an early age. These became Kevin’s core philosophies and the pillars upon which he would one day build his empire.

As a university student, Kevin’s innate business sense led him along several different paths, including some very unusual, very entrepreneurial ways of making a profit.

Not long after he finished his MBA, Kevin had a meeting that changed his life forever. He met a man who had a strange idea for a software product—an idea with huge, high-profit potential that Kevin immediately recognized.

After years of ups, downs, sacrifices, challenges, and lessons learned—not to mention a critical phone call that nearly cost him everything—the opportunity that Kevin saw eventually turned into a computer software giant Softkey that was later acquired by Mattel for more than $4 billion dollars.

After his extraordinary success, Kevin eventually found himself on television, quickly becoming a sought-after host and personality on a range of shows–including Discovery’s Project Earth, CBC’s Dragons’ Den, and currently ABC’s wildly successful investment reality show Shark Tank.

Kevin is the bestselling author of Cold Hard Truth: On Business, Money & Life and Cold Hard Truth On Men, Women, and Money: 50 Common Money Mistakes and How to Fix Them, and other books.

Topics

Cold Hard Trutharrow-down

Kevin O’Leary, one of North America’s most successful entrepreneurs, reveals the secrets that made him rich and shares his personal advice for readers from every walk of life. Kevin describes his incredible journey, from his sometimes difficult childhood to the way he built his first company, managed personal pressures, and ultimately achieved remarkable success. His advice is engaging and practical – and will help those who read it become the best entrepreneurs and business people that they can be. Topics cover business, money, and life, including how to find your calling and turn your talents into a profitable venture; building a dream team; transforming adversity into opportunity, and making and growing your business–and your money.

Lessons from a Sharkarrow-down

Kevin O’Leary will take you on a behind-the-scenes look at his two hit shows, Dragons’ Den & Shark Tank. He customizes every presentation for his audience to bring unique business information to each event.  He’ll share entertaining and insightful outtakes from his TV shows – videos you can’t see anywhere else, along with a current economic overview and how it relates to your industry, and finally, he’ll be a ‘secret agent’ for your industry with insights into how your industry is performing, where the innovation is coming from and more. All based on a content review of your industry prior to the event.

An Evening with Kevin O'Learyarrow-down

With candor and unmatched business smarts, Kevin O’Leary draws on his encyclopedic knowledge of finance, investing, economics, and business to discuss a variety of topics. How, for instance, will the global recession affect a myriad of industries, including your own, and what can you do to protect your company, and come out stronger than ever? Razor-sharp and quick on his feet, O’Leary pulls no punches in his enlightening and timely talks.

American Business 2.0arrow-down

When the great COVID Pandemic of 2020 hit the world, it altered the American business landscape. While many businesses like restaurants, airlines, and shared workplaces (think WeWork) went out of business or were reduced drastically, online businesses like Zoom, Adobe, and Shopify flourished.  Meanwhile, changes that were happening slowly in the workplace, such as remote work, flexible schedules, and online retailing, accelerated rapidly and became the norm. In this talk on the future of business, Kevin O’Leary will share other changes that are happening so you and your company can be prepared for American Business 2.0.

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