Karen Backfisch Olufsen: Jim Cramer’s Ex-Wife & Trading Partner

Introduction

Type “Karen Backfisch Olufsen” into a search engine and you’ll find dozens of biography pages, but very few agree on much beyond one fact: She was married to CNBC’s Jim Cramer. Karen Backfisch Olufsen is best known as the original wife of the “Mad Money” host, but before that, she was his trading partner and, by his own admission, one of the savviest stock pickers he has ever worked with. This piece distinguishes what is actually on record about Karen Backfisch Olufsen from the speculation that has accrued to her name, relying only on reporting that can be verified and on Cramer’s own published account of their years together.

Let me say from the outset: Karen Backfisch Olufsen has maintained a surprisingly low profile for someone associated with a media figure as high-profile as Cramer. That’s by design, not accident, which means there isn’t much solid, sourced information about her that you can find other than what’s floating around online.

Karen Backfisch Olufsen: Public Identity — Who Is She?

Karen Backfisch Olufsen was a Wall Street trader who worked with Jim Cramer in the late 1980s and 1990s, first as a colleague and then as a key trader in the hedge fund he started. Public records and Cramer’s own writing show her as “Karen Backfisch” – the “Olufsen” addition is found widely across secondary biography sites, but no primary source (news reporting, Wikipedia, or Cramer’s own accounts) explains where it comes from or confirms a second marriage tied to that name. Readers should treat that as an unsubstantiated detail, not as fact.

Her professional history is well-documented: she went to the State University of New York at Stony Brook and started her career at Lehman Brothers, where she became assistant vise president before crossing paths with Cramer at the hedge fund manager Michael Steinhardt’s firm.

Family Background, Relationships

There is no public information about Karen Backfisch Olufsen’s parents, siblings, or extended family. This article will not speculate on any information that has not been publicly verified by reliable sources. What’s on record is the family she created with Jim Cramer.

Cramer and Backfisch married in 1988, the same year she joined the hedge fund he was building. They divorced after 21 years of marriage in 2009. The couple had two daughters, Cecelia, or “Cece,” and Emma. Later, in April 2015, Cramer married real estate broker Lisa Cadette Detwiler, which sometimes causes confusion for those doing research on his family history as Detwiler is a different person and is not related to Karen Backfisch Olufsen.

Career, Work and Professional Identity

This is where the story of Karen Backfisch Olufsen is best documented, primarily because Cramer wrote extensively about her role in his 2002 memoir, Confessions of a Street Addict.

Backfisch was an accomplished trader by the time they met, Cramer says, having worked at Lehman Brothers and at Michael Steinhardt’s hedge fund. She joined Cramer in 1988 as a trader when he started his own fund, Cramer & Co. (later Cramer, Berkowitz & Co.), and remained in that role as they also married that same year.

In financial media coverage of the fund, she was dubbed “the Trading Goddess” by Cramer. Her gift, he said, was to spot stocks that were “technically ready” to move — that is, their charts and trading patterns suggested a breakout was coming — and then to work the phones with brokers and analysts, getting ahead of upgrades, coverage initiations and other catalysts before they hit the public. It was a relationship-driven, aggressive trading style based on constant contact with the sell side, and by Cramer’s telling, it was instrumental in the fund’s early results.

Key Public Mentions and Noteworthy Moments

Karen Backfisch Olufsen’s biggest public “moment” by far is a body of writing: Cramer paid her real attention in Confessions of a Street Addict, citing her trading instincts as a driving force behind the fund’s performance in its formative years. That memoir is still the most complete firsthand account of her professional life available to the public, as she has not granted interviews or written publicly about her own career.

Outside the book, she is sometimes mentioned in retrospective pieces on Cramer’s Wall Street years and in coverage of his divorce and remarriage, but always as a supporting player in his narrative, not a subject in her own. Some of the more elaborate claims that appear on lower-quality biography sites—including specific net worth figures, or claims that she “predicted” certain market crashes—aren’t supported by any of the court records, financial disclosures, or news archives reviewed for this story. Those allegations could not be substantiated and are not repeated here.

Family Snapshot

Relation	Name	Notes
Ex-husband	Jim Cramer	Married 1988–2009; host of CNBC’s Mad Money and former hedge fund manager
Daughter	Cecelia “Cece” Cramer	Limited information is public.
Daughter	Emma Cramer	Little public information is available.
Professional connection	Michael Steinhardt	Hedge fund manager where Karen Backfisch and Jim Cramer crossed paths early in their careers
Cramer’s wife now	Lisa Cadette Detwiler	Married Cramer in 2015; no relation to Karen Backfisch Olufsen

The Story’s Personal Aspect

What the record shows is not a portrait of a public figure but of someone who chose the opposite route after a very public marriage ended. Cramer’s memoir portrays a woman who is decisive and un-sentimental about the market, someone who approaches trading as a discipline of gathering information, not as one based on instinct alone. Beyond that professional portrait, Karen Backfisch Olufsen has not spoken publicly about her marriage, her divorce, or her life after, and there is no verified reporting to fill that gap. The silence seems to be a choice, not the lack of a story worth telling.

Recent Public Visibility

There is no recent, verified news coverage of Karen Backfisch Olufsen’s current career, location or personal life. She has not appeared in interviews, financial industry coverage or public records reviewed for this piece since her divorce from Cramer was finalized in 2009. If you are looking for current information on her present-day activities, please be aware that a lot of the content purporting to offer this information is unsourced, and in some cases, may be speculative or generated to meet search demand rather than sourced from verified reporting.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Karen Backfisch Olufsen?

She is a former Wall Street trader best known as the first wife of CNBC’s Jim Cramer, with whom she worked as a trader at his hedge fund both before and during their marriage.

Was Jim Cramer married to Karen Backfisch Olufsen?

Yes. They married in 1988 and divorced in 2009, a 21-year marriage.

What was Karen Backfisch Olufsen’s profession?

She was a stock trader, first at Lehman Brothers, then at Michael Steinhardt’s hedge fund, and then at Jim Cramer’s own fund, Cramer & Co.

Why was Karen Backfisch Olufsen known as “the Trading Goddess”?

That nickname was used by Jim Cramer in his memoir Confessions of a Street Addict, recognizing her ability to spot technically sound stocks and get ahead of analyst activity that moves the market.

Does Karen Backfisch Olufsen have children?

Yes, she and Jim Cramer share two daughters, Cecelia (“Cece”) and Emma.

Why is she sometimes called “Backfisch-Olufsen” and not just “Backfisch”?

It is not clear from the available primary sources. Primary sources, including Wikipedia and Cramer’s own writing, simply refer to her as Karen Backfisch. The “Olufsen” suffix is also widespread on secondary biography sites, but without a source, so it should be considered unconfirmed.

Is Karen Backfisch Olufsen still in the finance industry?

There is no publicly verified information to confirm her current career. She has maintained a low profile since her divorce from Cramer.

Where is Karen Backfisch Olufsen now?

Not known to the public. Since her divorce she has not been seen in public or made a statement and no credible source has confirmed where she is or what she is doing.