CNBC hires Cassella to be DC correspondent

Dan Colarusso, senior vice president of  CNBC, sent out the following on Monday:

I’m excited to announce Megan Cassella will join CNBC as a correspondent based in our Washington, D.C. bureau. In her role, Megan will cover the intersection of business and Washington focusing on the issues that are essential to our audience including taxes, budget and regulatory policy. She will also report on the market and economic implications of the Biden administration’s industrial policy push as we head into an election year. Her first day will be January 8^th.

Megan comes to us from Barron’s, where she was most recently its Senior Economics and Policy Reporter. During her two years at the company, she’s had several important cover stories, including one in September laying out the anomalies in the U.S. labor market. Prior to Barron’s, she was a reporter for Politico covering trade, the renegotiation of NAFTA and the Biden administration’s economic policy transition.

Megan received her B.A. in journalism and international politics at the University of North Carolina. When she’s not hunting for stories, she’s crisscrossing D.C. looking for quality North Carolina barbeque.

Separately, many of you may have noticed a change to Leslie Picker’s chyron in recent months, but I’d like to officially announce she has assumed the title of CNBC Senior Banking and Financial Correspondent.

It’s well-deserved recognition. Leslie’s body of work has been a parade of star-studded CEO sit-downs including Jamie Dimon and the duo of James Gorman and Ted Pick, breaking news on influential investors and keeping CNBC ahead of the curve on the growth in private markets and key activist campaigns. This all speaks to her growing impact in the financial sector and beyond, and I’m extremely confident it’ll only get bigger and better in 2024.

Moving westward, to our San Francisco bureau, Kate Rooney will own our on-air coverage of much of Amazon’s business, primarily AWS, AI, labor issues, leadership and stock action. Kate has done tremendous work covering crypto and with the Sam Bankman-Fried trial in her rear-view mirror, she can now focus her reporting on a mega-cap tech firm. She’ll also continue to cover fintech, institutional adoption of crypto, payments and individual investor trends through her reporting on Robinhood, Coinbase and other emerging financial platforms.

Kate’s new role will solidify an important piece of the tech ecosystem and coverage of a group of stocks in which our audience is keenly interested.

Deirdre Bosa will continue to drive the “TechCheck” franchise deeper into our daily television coverage and develop digital features, including a weekly video program and potentially an audio offering, too. In addition, her on-air reporting will increase its focus on the Alphabet empire and its far-flung businesses, action around Chinese tech companies, food delivery and ride sharing. She’ll also be digging deeper into the San Francisco tech community, its players and the culture around it.

Please join me in welcoming Megan to CNBC.