Robert Herjavec

Robert Herjavec was born in 1962 in what is now Croatia and emigrated to Canada with his family as a child to escape communist Yugoslavia; his family arrived in Canada with limited means and he worked odd jobs growing up before attending the University of Toronto where he studied English literature and political science. Herjavec began his technology career in sales and rose to general manager at Logiquest before being fired in 1990; that year he founded BRAK Systems, an Internet security integrator started from his basement which grew to become Canada’s largest internet security company and was sold to AT&T Canada for CA$30.2 million in 2000. After working at AT&T and serving as VP of sales at Ramp Networks (which was later sold to Nokia), Herjavec took time off and then returned to found The Herjavec Group in 2003, building it into one of Canada’s largest IT security companies with substantial recurring revenue before its merger/rebranding into Cyderes/Fishtech-related structures in later years. He expanded his public profile by appearing as an investor on Canada’s Dragons’ Den and as a long‑running “Shark” on ABC’s Shark Tank starting in 2009, later also appearing on other international versions of the franchise. Herjavec has written several business books (including Driven and The Will to Win), speaks globally on entrepreneurship and leadership, competes in motorsports events as a personal interest, and has participated in entertainment projects such as Dancing with the Stars; he also lists executive producer credits and numerous keynote appearances.