Derek O'Brien was born in Kolkata, India. He went to St. Xavier's Collegiate School in the city and St. Columba's School in Delhi, India. After graduating in English from Scottish Church College, Kolkata, he began his professional career as a sports journalist but soon shifted to advertising. After working for a number of very successful years as Creative Head of Ogilvy, Derek decided to focus all his energy and talent in his passion - quizzing.

Today, Derek O'Brien is Asia's best-known quizmaster and the CEO of Derek O'Brien & Associates Pvt. Ltd. He is the host of the longest-running corporate quiz show, The Economic Times Brand Equity Quiz and host of the longest-running game show on Indian television, The Bournvita Quiz Contest, for which he was voted the Best Anchor of a Game Show at the Indian Television Academy Awards for three years in a row.

Apart from conducting live quizzes across the length and breadth of India, Derek O'Brien regularly conducts quiz shows in the US, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Nepal.

In addition to his numerous quizzes, Derek O'Brien has also authored more than 30 reference and quiz books for Penguin, making him Penguin India's highest selling reference author.

He is also the author of two extremely successful school text book series with Pearson Education. Know and Grow with Derek, is a series aimed at addressing the four vital success skills of student life: personality development, life skills, general awareness, and creativity and thinking skills. It is, at present, No. 1 in its category of books. In 2010-11, Derek launched a general knowledge series titled: Be a GK Champ.

His Know and Grow with Derek soft skills course is a scientifically designed interactive programme, which uses innovative mathematical tools to successfully help students in developing their personality and creativity. Over one lakh students have already benefitted from this course.

To know about him and his company visit the website www.derek.co.in. You can even follow Derek on Facebook and Twitter.