Barbara Corcoran

Born in the New York City suburb of Edgewater, New Jersey, real-estate mogul and reality TV star Barbara Corcoran graduated from St. Thomas Aquinas College in 1971 intending to pursue a career in education. After teaching for one year, she began working as a real-estate broker, and in 1973 co-founded a business called The Corcoran Group. In addition to her work as a broker, she began publishing The Corcoran Report, a document detailing real-estate trends in New York City. The Corcoran Group was a tremendously successful business, selling and renting properties in such luxury communities as the Hamptons, Palm Beach, and New York City. The company was a tremendous success, and Corcoran went on to sell her business in 2001 for $66 million. Following the sale, Corcoran began to make the rounds on the real estate circuit, and to work as a consultant and a television producer as well, through her production company Barbara Corcoran, Inc. Corcoran was one of the "Shark" investors on the hit ABC program "Shark Tank" (ABC, 2009-), and personally invested in several businesses presented on the show. Corcoran served as a columnist for More, Redbook, and The Daily Review. She wrote a daily column for The New York Daily News, and hosted "The Millionaire Broker with Barbara Corcoran" on MSNBC. Corcoran also wrote several books including If You Don't Have Big Breasts, Put Ribbons on Your Pigtails: and Other Lessons I Learned From My Mom.