Chris Gardner

Chris Gardner is an American businessman, motivational speaker and producer. During the early 1980s, Gardner struggled with homelessness while raising a toddler son. He became a stockbroker and eventually founded his own brokerage firm Gardner Rich & Co in 1987. In 2006, Gardner sold his minority stake in the firm and published a memoir which was later made into the 2006 Oscar-nominated film "The Pursuit of Happyness" starring Will Smith. Gardner also served as a hospital corpsman in the United States Navy during the Vietnam War.