Maria Bartiromo
Bartiromo is CNBC's "Money Honey" and the host of Closing Bell.
A native of Brooklyn-she attended an all-girls Catholic high school in Bay Ridge-Bartiromo worked as a coat check girl and helped keep the books at her family's Italian restaurant as a teen. She enrolled at C.W. Post, then transferred to NYU and got her first news experience with an internship at CNN's Showbiz Today. After graduating, Bartiromo took a job at CNN Business News and moved up the ladder to producer and assignment editor. Standing in front of the camera-not behind it-was the ultimate goal, but when she asked her boss Lou Dobbs for an onscreen role, she was turned down.
In 1993, Bartiromo left CNN for CNBC when then-chief Roger Ailes offered her a position at the upstart business network. Two years later, she started covering the stock market, eventually earning a spot hosting Marketwatch and reporting from the floor of the NYSE on Squawk Box. As the economy overheated in the late 1990s and everyone took up day trading, Bartiromo became a star, earning the nickname "Money Honey" for her general appearance in an industry otherwise populated by old white dudes in suits. She's been with CNBC ever since.
Bartiromo is married to Jonathan Steinberg, the son of famed financier Saul Steinberg, whose empire crumbled in 2001 when his Reliance Group went bankrupt. They live on the Upper East Side. [Image via Getty]