Kai Ryssdal Bio, Age, Family, Wife, Net Worth, Books, Marketplace

Kai Ryssdal Biography

Kai Ryssdal is an American radio journalist and the anchor of Marketplace, a weekday business program broadcast on public radio stations in the United States. He also co-hosts the offshoot podcast Make Me Smart alongside Kimberly Adams.

How old is Kai Ryssdal? – Age

She is 60 years old as of 8 October 2023. She was born in 1963 in Briarcliff Manor, New York, United States.

Kai Ryssdal Family – Education

His surname is Norwegian because his father was born in Norway. He spent several years of his boyhood in England and Denmark before returning to the United States at the age of eight, settling in Westchester County, New York. In 1985, he received his Bachelor of Arts degree in History from Emory University. Ryssdal earned a Master of Arts in National Security Studies from Georgetown University in 1993.

Kai Ryssdal Husband – Children

He has been married to Stephanie Fossan since 1997. The couple has four children; Soren Ryssdal, Liv Ryssdal, Adin Ryssdal, and Tait Ryssdal.

Kai Ryssdal Net Worth

She has an estimated net worth of $1.1 million.

Kai Ryssdal Marketplace

Marketplace is produced and distributed by American Public Media. Ryssdal relocated to southern California and joined the Marketplace Morning Report in 2001, where he spent four years waking up at midnight to begin airing at 2:50 a.m., which was 5:50 a.m. back east. Ryssdal took over Marketplace in 2005. mediabistro.com spoke with him to learn how he creates Marketplace stories that keep listeners engaged.

Kai Ryssdal Photo
Kai Ryssdal Photo

Kai Ryssdal Books

He got a work at a bookshop in Palo Alto, and one evening, while stacking books and pondering what he was going to do with his life, he stumbled across a book listing radio internships. Ryssdal, who had long been called a “news freak,” decided to try his hand at broadcasting. He spent a year and a half schlepping at San Francisco’s KQED before finally getting on air.

Kai Ryssdal Career

Ryssdal started his career like many others: as an intern at a public radio station. Unlike others, he had previously served as a Navy pilot and a US Foreign Service officer. Ryssdal and his wife left Beijing in 1997 to attend Stanford Business School.

After college, Ryssdal served in the United States Navy for eight years, first flying a Northrop Grumman E-2 Hawkeye from the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt and subsequently as a Pentagon staff officer. After completing his Master’s degree, Ryssdal joined the United States Foreign Service, where he worked in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and Beijing.
Before joining Marketplace, Ryssdal worked as a reporter and substitute host for The California Report, a news and information show delivered to public radio stations across California by KQED-FM in San Francisco.

He has received accolades from the Radio and Television News Directors Association as well as the National Public Radio News Directors Association for his radio work.