CNBC’s Kayla Tausche Explains How She Landed Her TV Career
What’s Kayla Tausche’s salary? Get to know the CNBC anchor and White House correspondent—and see what she recommends aspiring journalists do.
Mar. 22 2022, Published 12:38 p.m. ET
How does a journalist work their way up in cable news—and rack up an impressive net worth and salary along the way? CNBC’s Kayla Tausche has career advice to share.
Tausche became the channel’s senior White House correspondent a year ago, a high point in a career that has also included jobs at the Associated Press and at the Financial Times Group.
Read on for more details about Tausche’s net worth and salary, her career trajectory, and her words of wisdom for aspiring TV journalists.
Kayla Tausche started her journalism career during college.
Tausche attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she graduated with honors and published a cross-cultural media analysis of the British handover of Hong Kong, as her CNBC bio notes. During college, she landed editorial jobs at the Associated Press and Bloomberg News.
A post-graduation gig reporting for a hedge-fund newsletter owned by the Financial Times is what led Tausche to her CNBC career, as she told Forbes in 2018. “I was able to break a lot of news during the financial crisis, and a few scoops, in particular, caught the eye of CNBC,” she said, “After appearing in regular guest segments for about six months, CNBC invited me to jump over to television.”
Tausche initially covered the banking industry for CNBC, and from 2014 to 2017, she co-hosted Squawk Alley. In 2020, Tausche provided election night coverage.
In her Forbes interview, Tausche advised aspiring journalists to build a network. “I began cold-calling and emailing strangers I wanted to get to know in my reporting,” she said. “The feeling of being a nuisance fades when you realize how many people have stories they want to tell and views they want to share—and are thankful to have an outlet through which to do so."
She also recommended being “(politely) proactive,” sharing one example of this strategy in practice. “Earlier this year, I raised my hand for an assignment for which I knew other colleagues of mine were already being considered. A mentor told me, memorably, ‘Make them tell you no.’ They said ‘yes’ instead.”
At CNBC, Tausche may be earning hundreds of thousands per year.
Reports of Tausche’s net worth and salary are sketchy at best, but one site claims she has a fortune worth $3.5 million. Glassdoor, meanwhile, reveals that CNBC anchors earn an average total of $699,000 to $796,000 per year.
Kayla Tausche
CNBC anchor and senior White House correspondent
Net worth: $3.5 million (reported)
Kayla Tausche is the senior White House correspondent for CNBC and a fill-in anchor for the channel’s Business Day programming. She previously co-hosted Squawk Alley for CNBC.
Birthdate: July 17, 1986
Hometown: Atlanta, Ga.
Education: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Spouse: Jeffrey Jacob Izant (m. 2015)
Children: Catherine “CeCe” Clancy Izant (b. 2018), Grace Lincoln Izant (b. 2021)
The 35-year-old shared more career advice in a 2017 interview with Born on Fifth. “[A] mentor once told me: ‘The best warriors are never worriers,’” she recalled at the time. “Be confident in your abilities and preparation, and seize the opportunities as they present themselves. You can never be fully prepared for the moment you want to seize, but you can always be underprepared. And little good can come from worrying about the little things.”
