Liz Claman is ready to run. On a chilly Sunday morning in March, she’s decked out in black-and-purple tights, a gray “Cal Tennis” sweatshirt and a Fox Business Network hat that reigns in her strawberry-blonde hair. Over the course of five miles through Palisades Park, she talks about everything from doing Jane Fonda workouts with Paula Zahn in the ’80s, to wiping out during a charity ski run, and how she admires a nun who ran the Olympic trials when she was in her 50s whom she read about in the book First Marathons.

“I’m so glad we did that,” she says as she sips water in the kitchen of her Edgewater home after the run with the New York Times spread across the kitchen island and her in-laws watching basketball in the living room with her daughter, Gabrielle. “I’m so energized for the day.”
You wouldn’t think that Claman needs an extra shot of energy if you’ve watched her on TV. She’s an anchor at Fox Business Network and helms three hours of air time a day­—a job she does without showing how draining it can be. So she’ll do what she can to keep herself going, even if it means leaving a cushy job at an established station to get behind something new.

“Ninety-nine percent of the world wants comfy, cozy, and familiar. I’m in the one percent that needs things shaken up,” she says.

That “comfy, cozy, and familiar“ was at CNBC, where she worked from 1998 to 2007, anchoring shows such as Morning Call, Cover to Cover, and Wake Up Call. She helped the new station gain traction in the crowded cable news world and, so it would seem, had a plum job worth sitting on—if she liked being comfortable. And considering that Claman, who could have easily slid into the Hollywood lifestyle of a spoiled kid, picked up news instead. It’s not too big a shock that she jumped at the chance to dive into the unknown.

It’s a decision she came to, in part, by doing what she did that cold Sunday morning­—running. When she saw herself stuck in a rut, she decided to run the 2006 New York City Marathon. Never mind that she was born with scoliosis and doctors told her she’d never run long distances. Never mind she wanted to quit after mile nine. Never mind that medics converged on her as she crossed the finish line. It was something she needed to do, both for herself and her future.
“It hurt. But I knew I had to do it for myself, my kids, my career, and my life, and when I was crossing that finish line, I knew there was a lot more that I could do in this world than just continue on that comfortable path,” she says.

Claman was born in Los Angeles to a doctor father and actress mother. While all her friends pegged Hollywood for their futures, Claman knew that news was where she belonged. So when she was 20 years old, she marched into KCBS-TV and declared that she’d work for free. She was granted an internship, and on the very last day, she produced a segment on the death of Rock Hudson. He was “the first big celebrity to die of AIDS,” says Claman. “I went home and I couldn’t sleep. I knew what I was going to do with the rest of my life.”


After graduating from the University of California­­-Berkley, she went back to KCBS-TV for a job—a paying one this time­—but they turned her down. So she worked as a receptionist at Samuel Goldwyn, and kept calling CBS.
“Persistence is really what I learned will get you what you want. You don’t have to be the smartest, you don’t have to be the best, you don’t have to be the most brilliant. What you have to be is the one who hangs on the longest.” KCBS-TV finally relented and hired her as a production assistant.

Toward the end of her time in Los Angeles, Claman answered a call about a woman who had sicced her pit bull on her neighbors. When Claman arrived, crew in tow, the woman sicced the dog on Animal Control, and on Claman’s team. “We got it all on camera. The animal control officer did survive, but that one story ended up changing vicious-dog legislation in Los Angeles,” she says. It also earned Claman an Emmy for Best Spot Producer.

But wanting to be in front of the camera, she left Los Angeles for WSYX-TV (ABC) in Columbus, Ohio, where she worked as a reporter and then weekend anchor. That led to the anchor desk at WHDH-TV (NBC) in Boston. It also brought her to her husband, Jeff Kepnes, who also worked at WHDH-TV and is now executive producer for CNN’s Out in the Open. “He was just the best writer, and I was impressed by his brain power,” says Claman. The pair moved to New Jersey when Kepnes got a job launching MSNBC which, at the time, was located in Fort Lee. “I’m right behind you,” Claman told him.
But even though she came from a top station in a top market, she couldn’t
get a job on the national level.

“I stopped, took stock, and recognized all my priorities,” says Claman.That meant firing her agent and hiring a new one.
“I don’t golf, but I’ll do the Golf Channel. I don’t cook, but I’ll do the home and garden channel,” she told the agent.

At the time, she considered her business know-how to be on the level of her golf prowess. “I didn’t even balance my checkbook,” says Claman, but CNBC thought that audiences would relate to her, and hired her. It obviously was a good fit­–Claman is a sharp, feisty redhead with a soothing smile and tone of voice, even when she’s reporting on a pendulum market.

Claman with her husband, Jeff Kepnes, daughter, Gabrielle, and son, Julian.