Carla Harris is a Senior Client Advisor at Morgan Stanley. She was most recently a Vice Chairman responsible for increasing client connectivity and penetration to enhance revenue generation across the firm. She formerly headed the Emerging Manager Platform, the equity capital markets effort for the consumer and retail industries, and was responsible for Equity Private Placements. In her 30+ year career, Harris has had extensive industry experiences in the technology, media, retail, telecommunications, transportation, industrial, and healthcare sectors. In August 2013, Harris was appointed by President Barack Obama to chair the National Women’s Business Council.

For more than a decade, Harris was a senior member of the equity syndicate desk and executed such transactions as initial public offerings for UPS, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Ariba, Redback, the General Motors sub-IPO of Delphi Automotive, and the $3.2 billion common stock transaction for Immunex Corporation, one of the largest biotechnology common stock transactions in U.S. history.

Harris was named to Fortune Magazine’s list of “The 50 Most Powerful Black Executives in Corporate America,” Fortune’s Most Influential List, U.S. Bankers' Top 25 Most Powerful Women in Finance (2009, 2010, 2011), Black Enterprise’s Top 75 Most Powerful Women in Business (2017) and “Top 75 African Americans on Wall Street,” Essence Magazine’s list of “The 50 Women Who are Shaping the World,” Ebony’s Power 100 and “15 Corporate Women at the Top,” and Woman of the Year by the Harvard Black Men’s Forum (2004) and the Yale Black Men’s Forum (2011).

Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, Harris received an MBA, Second Year Honors from Harvard Business School and an AB in economics from Harvard University, Magna Cum Laude. She has also received Honorary Doctorates of Laws, Humanities, and Business from Marymount Manhattan College, Bloomfield College, Converse College, Jacksonville University, Simmons College, College of New Rochelle, St. Thomas Aquinas College, Babson College, Fisk University, Wake Forest University, and Felician University. Harris is actively involved in her community and heartily believes that “we are blessed so that we can be a blessing to someone else.”

Harris is the past Chair of the Board of the Morgan Stanley Foundation and The Executive Leadership Council, and sits on the boards of Sponsors for Educational Opportunity (SEO), The Sesame Workshop, and Mother Cabrini Health Foundation, and is an active member of the St. Charles Gospelites of the St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church and Mark Howell Singers. She is a member of the board of overseers of Harvard University and the board of directors of Walmart Corporation, Cummins Corporation, and MetLife. Harris was co-chair of the National Social Action Commission of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated. She has been named to the New Jersey Hall of Fame (2015) and has received the Bert King Award from the Harvard Business School African American Alumni Association, the 2005 Women’s Professional Achievement Award from Harvard University, the Pierre Toussaint Medallion from the Office of Black Ministry of the Archdiocese of New York, the Women of Power Award given by the National Urban League, the Women of Influence Award from The Links, Incorporated, and many other awards.

In her other life, Harris is a singer who has sold out concerts at Carnegie Hall and the Apollo Theatre, and released four gospel albums: “O This is Christmas,” “Unceasing Praise,” “Joy Is Waiting," and “Carla’s First Christmas," a bestseller on Amazon.com in New York and featured on the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather. She is also an internationally renowned public speaker and the author of the books Strategize to Win (2014), Expect to Win (2009), and Lead To Win (2022).