Zain Asher

Zain Asher is an anchor for CNN International based in New York. She currently anchors weekend editions of CNN Newsroom, and can regularly be seen filling in on the network’s premier business programs, Quest Means Business and First Move with Julia Chatterley.

Asher also hosts Marketplace Africa, CNNI’s weekly business show about the continent and its place within global markets, and often interviews CEOs and world leaders for the program.

She has anchored CNN’s special coverage around #MyFreedomDay, a global call to action that raised awareness of modern-day slavery all over the world, as well as the deaths of Fidel Castro, boxing legend Muhammad Ali and singer George Michael.

In addition to anchoring major breaking news stories for CNN, she has reported from the field on high-profile stories like the 2014 kidnapping of hundreds of schoolgirls by Boko Haram militants in Nigeria, and the 2013 terrorist attack at the Boston Marathon.

Asher previously served as a CNN business correspondent covering the stock market from the New York Stock Exchange, U.S. Federal Reserve monetary policy and high-profile IPOs.

Asher joined CNN from MONEY magazine where she covered careers and investing. Prior to MONEY, Asher was a general assignment reporter for News 12 in the greater New York area.

Born and raised in London, Asher graduated from Oxford University where she studied French and Spanish and graduated with a distinction in oral Spanish. In 2006, she earned an MS from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.

She is fluent in French, Spanish and Ibo (her native Nigerian dialect).