Kevin O’Leary
- in full:
- Terence Thomas Kevin O’Leary
- Political Affiliation:
- Conservative Party of Canada
Kevin O’Leary (born July 9, 1954, Montreal, Quebec, Canada) is a Canadian entrepreneur, financier, and television personality who is perhaps best known as a panelist on the reality series Dragons’ Den and Shark Tank.
O’Leary was the son of a salesman and a clothing manufacturer. After the death of his father, he spent time in the United States and Cambodia, where his stepfather was a student and a United Nations worker, respectively. O’Leary earned a bachelor’s degree in environmental studies from the University of Waterloo in 1977 and an M.B.A. degree from the University of Western Ontario (now known as Western University) in 1980. With two partners he formed Special Event Television, a company that produced sports programming. As a producer, he worked for the flamboyant Canadian hockey announcer Don Cherry.
In 1983, in Toronto, O’Leary cofounded a company called SoftKey Software Products, Inc. SoftKey acquired many producers of educational software, and during the early 1990s it was reputed to be one of Canada’s fastest-growing companies. After reaching an agreement in 1995 to buy the California-based Learning Company, SoftKey assumed the Learning Company name. The Learning Company was sold to the American toy maker Mattel in 1999 for more than $3 billion, but the acquisition turned out to be hugely unprofitable for Mattel, and O’Leary soon left the combined company. In 2008 he set up a mutual fund called O’Leary Funds, which he sold in 2016.
O’Leary began his rise to celebrity status in 2006, when he took a place on a panel of venture capitalists that passed judgment on hopeful entrepreneurs for the CBC reality show Dragons’ Den. Starting in 2009, he filled the same role on ABC’s Shark Tank, the U.S. version of the same program. He also appeared as a commentator for the Canadian television channel Business News Network.
In January 2017 O’Leary announced his candidacy for leadership of Canada’s Conservative Party. As a prospective politician with a background in business and television, but not government, he reminded some observers of U.S. Pres. Donald Trump. Although he quickly became a front-runner, O’Leary dropped out of the race in April, claiming that he would be unable to win the 2019 general election.