Kevin O’Leary
Kevin O’Leary of the ABC TV show “Shark Tank,” who’s also known as “Mr. Wonderful,” will speak at the University of Notre Dame Mendoza College of Business from 3:30 to 5 p.m. Friday (Nov. 21) in Mendoza’s Jordan Auditorium.
O’Leary will discuss what it takes to become a successful entrepreneur, and also judge business case pitches by three teams of Notre Dame student entrepreneurs. Each team has two minutes to pitch its venture, followed by a brief feedback session with O’Leary. Students and attendees will have the opportunity to text their vote for the winning team, which will receive a small cash prize.
The event, which is sponsored by the Mendoza College of Business and the Gigot Center for Entrepreneurship, is free and open to the public.
O’Leary is the chairman of O’Leary Funds and 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 at the University of Western Ontario and is a member of Boston’s 107-year-old Hamilton Trust.
O’Leary is a contributing columnist to CTV, BNN and the Bell Media Radio Network. He also has been featured on CNBC, ABC News and “Good Morning America,” and serves as an 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 an investor/host of ABC Television’s Emmy Award-winning venture capital reality program, “Shark Tank.”
The Gigot Center for Entrepreneurship was founded in 1998 for the purpose of fostering innovation and infusing aspiring entrepreneurs with a sense of the possible. Through rigorous coursework, business plan competitions, extensive networking and mentorship, and hands-on learning experiences, the center provides students with the knowledge and skills vital to entrepreneurship.
Each year, the Gigot Center hosts the McCloskey Business Plan Competition, which kicks off in the fall with teams entering their ideas for ventures into the competition. Over the course of nine months, the number of teams is narrowed to six, and those teams compete in the final round of live presentations in the spring, where a panel of judges awards more than $300,000 in cash and in-kind prizes.