Kevin O'Leary

Kevin O'Leary
O'Leary in March 2011
Born	(1954-07-09) 9 July 1954 Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Alma mater	University of Waterloo University of Western Ontario
Occupation	Founder of SoftKey Co-investor and Director of Storage Now Co-founder and Chairman of O'Leary Funds Co-investor and Venture capitalist in Dragons' Den and Shark Tank Co-host of The Lang and O'Leary Exchange Author of the Cold Hard Truth
Net worth	US$ 300 million[1]
Children	Trevor O'Leary
Website
Official website

Kevin O'Leary (born 9 July 1954) is a Canadian businessman, investor, writer, and television personality.

Early life and education

O'Leary was born in Montreal, Quebec, to a salesman father and seamstress mother.^[2]

His father was Irish and his mother was of Lebanese descent.^[3] O'Leary's parents divorced when he was young, and his father died shortly thereafter. His mother, Georgette, later remarried.^[4] He attended St. George's School.^[5]

After graduating from high school, O'Leary studied for two years at the Royal Military College Saint-Jean followed by the University of Waterloo,^[6] where he received an honours bachelor's degree in environmental studies and anthropology.^[7] In 1980, he earned an MBA from the Richard Ivey School of Business at The University of Western Ontario.

Career

Immediately after college, O'Leary and two friends launched Special Event Television (SET), a television production company that met limited success producing small television shows and in-between-periods commercials and local professional hockey games. Later he was bought out for $25,000 by one of his partners.

O'Leary then moved on to his second business venture, a software company in the basement of a small Toronto home along with partners John Freeman and Gary Babcock. His mother provided the seed investment capital of $10,000, which he used to start software publisher SoftKey. Softkey products typically consisted of software intended for home audiences, especially compilation discs containing various freeware or shareware game software packaged in a "jewel-case" CD-ROM. By 1994, Softkey had become a major consolidator in the educational software market, acquiring no less than 60 rivals, such as WordStar and Spinnaker Software.

In 1995, Softkey acquired The Learning Company (TLC) for $606 million, moved its headquarters to Boston, and took The Learning Company as its name. TLC bought its former rival Brøderbund in June 1998 for $416 million. In 1999, TLC and its 467 software titles were acquired by Mattel in a $3.8 billion stock swap.^[8] Sales and earnings for Mattel soon dropped, and O'Leary departed from Mattel. The purchase by Mattel was later called one of the most disastrous acquisitions in history.^[9]

In 2003, he became a co-investor and director in Storage Now, a developer of climate-controlled storage facilities. Through a series of development projects and acquisitions, Storage Now became Canada’s third-largest owner/operator of storage services, with facilities located 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.^{[citation needed]}

In March 2007, O'Leary joined the advisory board of Genstar Capital, a private equity firm that focuses on investments in selected segments of life science and healthcare services, industrial technology, business services and software. Genstar Capital appointed O'Leary to its Strategic Advisory Board to seek new investment opportunities for its $1.2 billion fund. O’Leary also serves on the executive board of the Richard Ivey School of Business at The University of Western Ontario. He is a member of the investment committee of Boston’s 107-year-old Hamilton Trust and an investor of EnGlobe, a TSX listed company.^{[citation needed]} He is a former co-host of SqueezePlay on Business News Network, Canada’s national business television specialty channel. O’Leary is currently working as the entrepreneur, investor, and co-host for the Discovery Channel’s Discovery Project Earth, a project that explores innovative ways man could reverse climate change.^[10]

Having carved out a niche for the O'Leary brand in the software industry, O'Leary moved on to establish the O'Leary name and brand in a multitude of industries, companies and products. Following his successful business ventures in software, storage facilities, and private equity, O'Leary has established his name in a number of other industries, including O'Leary Funds (a mutual and investment fund management firm that handles over $1.5 billion), O'Leary Ventures (a private early-stage investment company that invests in and partners with early-stage, high-growth-potential companies in various Canadian industries),^[11] O'Leary Mortgages (a mortgage firm), O'Leary books, and O'Leary Fine Wines (a winemaking company).^[12][13]

In September 2011, O'Leary released his book, Cold Hard Truth: On Business, Money & Life, wherein he shares his secrets, experiences, insights, and lessons on entrepreneurship, business, finance, money and life as well as advice for budding entrepreneurs.^[14] A sequel to his first book called The Cold Hard Truth On Men, Women, and Money: 50 Common Money Mistakes and How to Fix Them was followed up in 2012, which focused a greater emphasis toward personal financial money management techniques, common money mistakes, tricks and tips to earn more financial freedom each targeted toward a specific stage in a person's life.^[15]

Business journalism

O'Leary serves as foil to Journalist Amanda Lang on The Lang and O'Leary Exchange on CBC News Network. He is a venture capitalist on the Canadian television show Dragons' Den as well as a shark on the American version of Dragons' Den, Shark Tank, which airs on ABC. He is referred to as "Mr. Wonderful" and "The Undertaker" by Mark Cuban on the show. He has also hosted his own television show, Redemption Inc.

During a segment on the Occupy Wall Street protests on 6 October 2011 episode of the CBC News Network's The Lang & O'Leary Exchange, O'Leary criticized Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges for sounding "like a left-wing nutbar." Hedges stated afterwards that "it will be the last time [he appears on the show]" and compared the CBC to Fox News.^[16] CBC's ombudsman found O'Leary's behaviour to be a violation of the public broadcaster's journalistic standards.^[17]

In August 2013, O'Leary interviewed Rachel Parent, a 14-year-old anti-GMO foods activist. In the interview, O'Leary expressed concern that Parent had become a "shill" for environmentalists. The video went viral on social media, with many viewers regarding O'Leary as having embarrassed himself.^[18][19]

In January 2014, O'Leary was criticized for his remarks on his television show The Lang and O'Leary Exchange, saying that the news that the world's richest 85 people owned as much wealth as the bottom half of the global population was "fantastic news."

Bibliography

• Cold Hard Truth: On Business, Money & Life. Doubleday Canada. 2011. ISBN 978-0385671743
• Cold Hard Truth on Men, Women & Money. Doubleday Canada. 2012. ISBN 978-0-385-67850-6

References

External links

• Official website
• Kevin O'Leary at the Internet Movie Database
• 'Leary_Exchange The Lang & O'Leary Exchange
• CBC's Dragon's Den bio
• ABC's Shark Tank bio
• O'Leary Funds Inc.
• Time.com: TV's Shark Tank Guru: In Real Life, No Business Whiz