Working as a reporter for CNBC has been an amazing opportunity for Alex Sherman. The Harvard graduate possesses an impressive resume with a BA in Government, an MS in Journalism from Northwestern University, and an MBA in Business Administration from NYU. As a 13-year veteran of the field, Sherman has gained a reputation for being one of the most trusted business reporters in his field.
Alex would have never suspected that his journey from Lexington, Massachusetts to New York would be in business journalism.
“In eighth grade, I started covering high school sports for my local town paper, and I would get paid $25 an article. I continued to write sports through high school, and then I was the editor-in-chief of my high school paper. Then at Harvard, I wrote sports for several years and then I became the associate sports editor, and I was announcing football games for the radio station. By the time I had become a senior I kind of thought like, you know what I sort of want to do something else.”
Keen on taking a break from journalism, something else is exactly what Sherman found upon graduating from Harvard. He would spend the following two years as a supervisor at McMaster-Carr; a hardware, tool, and maintenance equipment supplier. Shortly thereafter, the itch for journalism resurfaced. And three years after graduating from Harvard, Sherman began his MS in Journalism at Northwestern.
“I really did not like being the supervisor to people who were much older than me and had kids. I felt sort of like an imposter being their boss to some degree. Plus, I kind of realized like this is not what I want to be doing. So, I applied to Northwestern journalism school, then I was sort of rerouted back onto the journalism track.”
Attending Northwestern proved to be a monumental decision for Alex Sherman. For most of his journalistic life, there was no doubt in his mind that he would end up as a sports journalist. Despite this, he enrolled in a business journalism course that would radically change his outlook on the future. By the end of this course, he was admitted into Bloomberg’s internship program. At Bloomberg, he would further his education by attending night classes at New York University, earning his MBA in Business Administration.
It did not take long for his career at Bloomberg to flourish. While at Bloomberg, he would break arguably one of the largest stories of 2015 in the Time Warner Cable purchase.
In 2015, Charter Communications nearly purchased Time Warner Cable for about 55.1 billion dollars. Charter Communications was the fourth-largest cable company in the U.S., and they were ambitious to acquire the second-largest cable company in Time Warner Cable. Eventually, the deal fell through, and AT&T purchased Time Warner Cable.
“Certainly, the media thrill of the job is when you get one of these stories and you know it before any rival does and you’re just trying to hunt it down while nobody else is. So, then you just start talking to your sources, who are the people that you know who have job meetings with these executives in the company board members. And then someone else on the other side of it. I’m trying to call as many people as I can think of, and I’m just trying to get one of these people on the phone to confirm... I was talking to people who were just removed to get a sense of anybody who may have had even secondhand knowledge. And then once you get some secondhand knowledge, you can guess some first-hand knowledge.”
Sherman would later help Bloomberg break Verizon’s purchase of AOL and Yahoo as he transitioned to a mergers and acquisitions reporter.
In April 2017, CNBC hired Bloomberg executive editor, Jeff McCracken. Although he was initially unsure of the change, Sherman followed his former boss six months later.
“Even though I didn’t necessarily want to leave Bloomberg. I was like, well, I’ve been here for almost 10 years and I didn’t love that Bloomberg was so hardcore financial with its audience. It didn’t allow me to show my entire personality because it’s very buttoned-up, so they don’t really let you off the leash too much in terms of trying to be funny or anything like that. I felt CNBC was a better fit for me in that sense because I knew I’d have a little bit more flexibility in terms of writing style or even when I’m on the air to show my personality a little bit more”
At CNBC Alex has become one of the network’s premiere M&A reporters. He has been featured on numerous CNBC shows and YouTube segments and now with CNBC Pro doing Q&A's with some of the most prevalent executives business. His work has allowed him to explore some of the most meaningful stories of the business world. In the last 15 days, he has covered Vox Media’s layoffs, interviewed CEO of Verizon, Hans Vestberg and reported on Uber’s acquisition of Postmates, among others.
Away from the restrictions of only covering the financial market, he has been able to let his personality shine. CNBC’s unique structure as a more diverse news channel has been the ideal landing spot for Alex. There, he has written articles such as him at 38 watching the Star Wars films for the first time. Never afraid to throw in a pop culture, or sports reference, CNBC’s wider demographic gives Alex the flexibility to be more creative with his work than he ever could have been at Bloomberg. This wider variety of content separates him from many other reporters, who are often reluctant to show their personality in their work.
It has been two years since Alex joined CNBC. In those two years he has become one of their most consistent and reliable journalists. While he may not work for any of the major sports leagues, he has approached the business world as someone who does. This approach has made Alex Sherman a fan favorite, as he continues to be a dominant force in the industry.
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