Joe Kernen

Who is Joe Kernen?

Joseph Richard "Joe" Kernen is a CNBC news anchor. He is currently co-host of CNBC’s Squawk Box. His nickname is "The Kahuna".

Kernen came to CNBC in the 1991 merger with Financial News Network, having joined FNN after a 10-year career as a stockbroker.

Kernen grew up in the Western Hills section of Cincinnati, Ohio and graduated from St. Xavier High School in 1974. He holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Colorado and a master’s degree in molecular biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he worked on cancer research.

He is married to Penelope Scott, a former commodities trader from Short Hills, New Jersey. They met after she joined CNBC in 1996, and were married in 1998 on a golf course. Kernen had an emergency appendectomy late on Aug. 5, 2010.

Kernen authored Your Teacher Said What?!: Defending Our Kids from the Liberal Assault on Capitalism with his then 5th grade daughter Blake.

In 2012, during the fiscal cliff crisis, Kernen at CNBC began a "Rise Above" campaign to pressure Congress to cut spending.