Born in Pittsburgh, Hannon grew up in the suburb of Fox Chapel and graduated from Shady Side Academy. She holds a BA in Comparative Literature from Duke University. She started her career in 1982 as a correspondent for Business Week, a regional correspondent for Advertising Age, a reporter for Pittsburgh Magazine, The Pittsburgh Press and Pittsburgh Business Times. In February 1985, Hannon moved to Washington, DC to work as a reporter for The Washington Business Journal. She headed to New York City in September 1985 to join Forbes Magazine where she rose from reporter to staff writer to assistant editor. She joined Money Magazine in 1991 as a staff writer covering personal finance. In 1992, she returned to Washington DC as an associate editor for Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. In 1993, she headed across town to join the staff of U.S. News & World Report as an associate editor covering personal finance, business and health. After nearly a five-year run, Hannon joined USA Today as a columnist for the “Your Money” column and reporter covering personal finance, taxes and retirement issues. She was a regular women and money columnist for iVillage.com from 1998 to 2000.

In 1999, Hannon became a freelance journalist. Hannon’s work has appeared in CBS MoneyWatch.com, AARP Bulletin Today, The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Readers Digest, Good Housekeeping, Institutional Investor, USAA Magazine, Working Woman, Bloomberg Personal Finance, Your Company, Prism, The Chronicle of The Horse and Advertising Age, among other national publications.

Hannon is the author of You and Your Money: A Passage from Debt to Prosperity (Credit Education Group, 2007), Getting Started In Estate Planning (John Wiley & Sons, 2000), Suddenly Single: Money Skills for Divorcees and Widows (John Wiley & Sons, 1998), Ten Minute Guide to Retirement for Women (MacMillan Publishing, 1996), and a non-fiction saga of an American Indian Trading Post, Trees in a Circle: The Teec Nos Pos Story (2000). Hannon’s latest book is What’s Next? Follow Your Passion and Find Your Dream Job to be published in April 2010 by Chronicle Books.

She has appeared as a financial expert on ABC News, CBS, Fox News, CNBC, and CNN, in addition to regional television stations, and has been a guest on numerous radio programs, including National Public Radio’s Talk of The Nation.

Hannon is a member of an Editorial Board at Duke University and the Board of Visitors at Shady Side Academy in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

On July 4, 1992, she married Cliff Hackel, an Emmy-award winning television producer, director, and editor.. The couple reside in Washington, DC with their Labrador retriever, Zena.