Barbara Ann Corcoran

 Barbara Ann Corcoran, born March 10, 1949, is an American businesswoman and investor. She is also a lecturer as a consultant, speaker, columnist syndicated as an author, author, and television show host. She founded The Corcoran Group, a real estate brokerage located in New York City, which she sold to NRT for $66 million in 2001. She shortly thereafter exited the company. Corcoran is one of ABC’s first Shark Tank investors. Since her inception she has appeared on every seasons of Shark Tank. As of February 2020, she had signed 53 deals on the show, the largest being a $350,000 investment to purchase 40 percent of Coverplay. Corcoran was born in Edgewater, New Jersey, the youngest of 10 children in a working class Irish-Catholic family. Florence Corcoran's mother was an errand-taker. Edwin W. Corcoran Jr. was her father during Corcoran's childhood. Her family sometimes depended on free food delivery from a local, friendly grocery store. Corcoran remembers her father as one who often drank too much and treated her mother with disrespect and contempt, particularly after he'd consumed alcohol. Corcoran struggled at school, and eventually discovered that she had dyslexia. Corcoran was educated in a Catholic elementary and then started high school in Englewood at St. Cecilia High School. Corcoran was a failure in several courses in her freshman year, moved to Leonia High School. There, she received a D.