Barbara Ann Corcoran

 Barbara Ann Corcoran (born March 10 1949) is an American businesswoman investor speaking, consultant and syndicated columnist. She is also an author, and television personality. In 2001, she founded The Corcoran Group in New York City. The company was sold to the company to NRT for $66 million. Shortly thereafter she resigned from the business. Corcoran, one of ABC's initial Shark investors has been part of each episode of Shark Tank. In February of 2020, she had completed 53 deals. The largest of these was a $350,000 investment in Coverplay at 40 percent. Corcoran was born in Edgewater, New Jersey, the second of 10 children from a working class Irish Catholic family. Florence, her mother, was an excellent homemaker. Edwin W. Corcoran Jr. was her father through Corcoran's early years. The family relied on food deliveries from a friendly local grocer for free food. Corcoran recalls her father as someone who was drunk sometimes and was rude to her mother. Corcoran struggled with her education and was later diagnosed with dyslexia. She attended the local Catholic elementary school and started the high school system at St. Cecilia High School in Englewood. Corcoran, who had failed numerous classes in her first year of high school, was transferred to Leonia High School. There she received a grade of D.