Robert Herjavec Biography

The Canadian investor and television personality Robert Herjavec was born in 1962 in Varazdin, Croatia. Herjavec’s family fled Croatia after his father, a political dissident, found himself in jeopardy for speaking his views against the country’s current regime. The Herjavec family settled in Halifax first, and then moved to Toronto, where Robert spent his formative years.

After graduating from the University of Toronto with a degree in English literature and political science in 1984, Robert Herjavec began working in film, mostly in roles as a production assistant and assistant director. He also served as a producer for Global TV’s broadcast of the XIV Winter Olympic Games in Sarajevo, Bosnia, and Herzegovina. But Robert harbored a strong desire to enter the growing business sector of technology, and so with no experience in the industry, he convinced Logiquest to hire him on a trial basis.

Herjavec eventually rose to become General Manager of the company, after which time he left Logiquest to form his own company, BRAK Systems, which specialized in security software. The move became Robert Herjavec’s rise to wealth and prominence; by the time the company was sold to AT&T in 2000, it was valued at over thirty million dollars. Next came the Herjavec group, which has since grown to become one of Canada’s largest and most profitable IT security providers.

Today, Robert Herjavec is best known for his role on the ABC reality competition series Shark Tank, where entrepreneurs are given the opportunity to pitch their companies and products to potential investors, Herjavec being one of them. With the success of the show, Robert has grown to become one of the most recognizable television personalities of the era. He has also authored three books - Driven: How to Succeed in Business and Life (2010); The Will to Win: Leading, Competing, Succeeding (2013); and You Don’t Have to Be a Shark: Creating Your Own Success (2016.)