Pittsburgh native to attend Brain Aneurysm Foundation Run/Walk, Aug. 15, 2026, on North Shore
Thirty years is a long time to be at one company these days.
Sharon Epperson, the Pittsburgh native and Allderdice High School graduate, has worked at the business/finance television network CNBC for 30 years…and counting.
The New Pittsburgh Courier learned that Epperson celebrated her 30-year anniversary in July 2026, after being hired in July 1996.
However, through all of the financial advice that she’s given on-air and in the community, she told the Courier in an exclusive interview that the best advice she can give anyone is not finance-related.
It’s to take care of your physical health.
SHARON EPPERSON’S FIRST ID CARD FOR CNBC IN 1996.
Nearly 10 years ago, on Sept. 21, 2016, Epperson suffered a brain aneurysm rupture. A brain aneurysm rupture causes a hemorrhagic stroke, which is fatal about 50 percent of the time.
Obviously, Epperson survived. But she told the Courier that she was the only person in her family of four generations to survive a brain aneurysm rupture. Her great-grandfather, grandfather and aunt all died of brain hemorrhages. When Epperson was doing yoga, she was jolted by “the worst sensation you have ever felt in the back of your head,” as she told the Brain Aneurysm Foundation for a report on its website.
She opened a “Sharon Epperson Chair of Research” via the Brain Aneurysm Foundation to help raise awareness and increase funding for research about brain aneurysms. It allots $10,000 to a recipient for one year of research on early detection, improved treatments and technological advances “that will save lives and improve the lives of patients with brain aneurysms,” Epperson said for a story on the Brain Aneurysm Foundation website.
“Because this is a life-threatening development that impacts African Americans and African American women in particular more than other groups, I think it’s really important for our community to come out and support this…learn more about it…learn about what having the worst headache in your life could really mean,” Epperson told the Courier.
“Just as much as I’m very focused on people sharing their financial health to build financial wealth over generations, I’m very focused on people sharing their family health,” Epperson continued. “Homegoing ceremonies are beautiful, wonderful blessings that we should have, but we also need to know why that happened. Medically, why is that person gone? Because could that be hereditary? Could that happen to me?”
Epperson said her sister and daughter have been tested for brain aneurysms, and her son is getting his test soon.
On Saturday morning, Aug. 15, Epperson is returning home, to Pittsburgh, to participate in the Brain Aneurysm Foundation’s Annual Run/Walk, on the North Shore. Epperson encourages everyone to participate in the run/walk, or at the least, learn more about the warning signs of a brain aneurysm rupture.
In the U.S., 30,000 people suffer a brain aneurysm rupture each year, and it affects African Americans nearly twice as much as Whites. Brain aneurysms are most prevalent in people ages 35-60, but can occur in children as well. Also, women, particularly those over the age of 55, have a higher risk of a brain aneurysm rupture than men.
Epperson told the Courier that she considers her employer, CNBC, like family. The company stood by her as she was undergoing treatment for her brain aneurysm rupture.
“I was able to, after taking a year medical leave, return to my employer, be able to work that job part-time at first and then with accommodations, and continue that job now for 10 more years…it’s one of the greatest blessings in my life,” Epperson said. “For business owners…value your people. I believe that I am valued by CNBC because I value my relationship with CNBC immensely, and that was a turning point for both sides.”
Epperson, CNBC’s senior personal finance correspondent, is a member of the Allderdice High School Hall of Fame, along with her sister, Lia Epperson. Sharon Epperson credits a teacher at Allderdice in the mid-1980s, Marsha Tharp, with getting her into journalism. Sharon Epperson took the class “Journalism 101,” taught by Tharp, at Allderdice.
“She taught us how to do an advertising campaign,” Sharon Epperson said about Tharp. “She taught us how to do a radio show. She taught us how to write, and that was my goal, to write for the school newspaper (which she later did). But most importantly, she took a flyer she received from the Pittsburgh Black Media Federation (PBMF), and she showed it to me.”
Sharon Epperson was then introduced to the PBMF, and the rest, they say, is history. Sharon Epperson participated in the Urban Journalism Workshop in the summers of her 10th, 11th and 12th grade high school years from the PBMF. Those relationships led her to interning at the now-defunct Pittsburgh Press newspaper for three summers.
“Pittsburgh journalism is so integral to my being as a journalist,” Sharon Epperson told the Courier. “The Pittsburgh Black Media Federation is the reason why I joined the National Association of Black Journalists as a college student and why I’m still a member…Pittsburgh has had a national impact on Black journalists.”
Sharon Epperson graduated from Harvard University in 1990 with a bachelor’s degree in sociology and government. She earned a Master of International Affairs degree from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs in 1993.
Prior to landing the job at CNBC, she worked as a correspondent for Time Magazine in its New York City bureau.
Today, on the air, whether it’s in the CNBC main headquarters in New Jersey or in its New York City studios, she spends time getting viewers up to speed on how to budget, what not to spend money on, and how to truly build wealth. But she told the Courier that her journalism and media chops all began and were honed not in the Big Apple, but in the Steel City.
“The education that I received in Pittsburgh in the Pittsburgh Public Schools, and through the Pittsburgh Black Media Federation,” Sharon Epperson said, “has been the foundation of my career.”
THE NEWSPAPER PRODUCED BY STUDENTS IN THE PITTSBURGH BLACK MEDIA FEDERATION’S URBAN JOURNALISM WORKSHOP IN 1985. SHARON EPPERSON IS PICTURED.
