Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary in Bismarck, ND

Kevin O’Leary was born on July 9th, 1954. As the son of a United Nations ILO official,

he had the opportunity to live and be educated in Cambodia, Cyprus, Tunisia, Ethiopia,

France and Switzerland.

Kevin attended the University of Waterloo where in 1977 he received an Honors

bachelor’s degree in environmental studies and Psychology. He attended the Ivey

Business School where he received his MBA in 1980.

After working briefly as an assistant product manager at Nabisco Brands, he 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”.

Kevin co-founded SoftKey Software in 1986. 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 of 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. In early 1996, SoftKey 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, two thousand 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 he 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 became an owner/operator of storage services with facilities

located in eleven cities serving such companies as Merck and Pfizer when it was acquired

by the In-Storage REIT in March 2007.

In July of 2007 Kevin became a founding SPAC investor and Director of Stream Global

Services Inc., focused on the growing outsourcing business services market.

Kevin O’Leary is the Chairman of O’Shares ETF Investments and Beanstox an

automated internet-based investment advisory service. He is the Chairman of O’Leary

Ventures Management GP LLC. He also holds investments in over 30 private venture

companies across a wide range of sectors. He is a member of Boston’s 120-year-old

Hamilton Trust, the oldest investment club in the US. He is an air commentator for CNN,

CNBC, CBS, ABC News and Good Morning America, Fox Business, Fox News, and an

entrepreneur/investor co-host for the Discovery Channels Project Earth series that

explores innovative ways man could reverse global warming implementing large scale

geo-engineering infrastructure projects. He is also an investor/host of ABC Television’s

four-time Emmy Award winning venture capital reality programs “Shark Tank” and

“Beyond the Tank” produced by MGM/Sony/ABC.

Kevin O’Leary is an active photographer, watch collector, wine, guitarist, and author of

three number #1 best selling books “Cold Hard Truth”, “Men, Women and Money” and

“Family Kids and Money”.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

University of Mary - Lumen Vitae Center, 7500 University Drive, Bismarck, United States