Jim Sciutto was born in Manhattan, New York, on March 10, 1970. His father was Italian-American and served in the U.S. Navy; his mother was Irish-American. He attended St. Ignatius Loyola School, then Regis High School, before enrolling at Yale University. He graduated with honors in Chinese history in 1992 and earned a Fulbright Fellowship to Hong Kong.

Sciutto began his journalism career as a Hong Kong correspondent for Asia Business News. He became a senior foreign correspondent for ABC News, reporting from inside Iran and undercover from Myanmar. From 2011 to 2013, he left journalism to serve as chief of staff to U.S. Ambassador Gary Locke in Beijing. He joined CNN as chief national security correspondent in 2013 and later co-anchored CNN Newsroom with Poppy Harlow.

In 2023, Sciutto briefly co-anchored CNN News Central‘s afternoon edition before moving to CNN Max that September. He has since anchored CNN Newsroom with Jim Sciutto and now hosts The Brief on CNN International. In 2024, he published The Return of Great Powers, a New York Times bestseller on Russia and China. Sciutto continues to report on U.S. national security, foreign policy, and the military as CNN’s chief national security analyst.