Kai Ryssdal has been the host and senior editor of Marketplace, public radio’s program on business and the economy, since 2005. He joined American Public Media in 2001 as the host of Marketplace Morning Report. Ryssdal began in public radio as a intern, then reporter and finally substitute host for The California Report at KQED-FM in San Francisco.

Ryssdal’s contributions to public radio have earned him first-place awards from the Radio and Television News Directors Association and the Public Radio News Directors Association. He has also appeared on regional and national television, from So Cal Connected on KCET to Piers Morgan Tonight and John King USA on CNN.

After graduating from Emory University, Ryssdal spent eight years in the United States Navy flying from the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Theodore Roosevelt and as a Pentagon staff officer. Before his career in public radio, he was a member of the United States Foreign Service in Ottawa, Canada, and Beijing, China. Ryssdal lives in Los Angeles with his wife and four children.