Barbara Ann Corcoran

 Barbara Ann Corcoran (born March 10, 1949) is an American businesswoman investor, speaker, consultant, syndicated columnist, author, and television personality. In 2001, she established The Corcoran Group in New York City. The company was sold to the company to NRT for $66 million. Shortly thereafter she left the business. One of the show's first "Shark" investors, Corcoran has appeared in every season of ABC's Shark Tank until now. In February of 2020, she had closed 53 deals. The largest of these was a purchase of $350,000 in Coverplay at 40 percent. Corcoran was born in Edgewater, New Jersey, the second child of 10 in a working class Irish-Catholic family. Florence was her mother, who was a homemaker. Edwin W. Corcoran Jr. was her father. He was constantly switching jobs throughout Corcoran's career. Her family depended sometimes on food delivered by an artisanal local grocery store for free food. Corcoran still remembers her father as someone who was drunk often and did not treat her mother with respect. Corcoran was a struggle throughout her education and later discovered that she had dyslexia. She attended a local Catholic elementary school before beginning the high school system in St. Cecilia High School in Englewood. After failing several courses in her first year of high school, Corcoran transferred to Leonia High School in Leonia, where she was a D-student when she graduated.