Carla Harris

Vice Chairman, Managing Director & Senior Client Advisor at Morgan Stanley

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Biography

Carla Harris is a renowned international public speaker and is also a Senior Client Advisor at Morgan Stanley. She was most recently the Vice Chairman responsible for increasing client connectivity and penetration to enhance revenue generation across the firm. In her 30+ year career as an investment banker, Ms. Harris has had extensive industry experiences in the technology, media, retail, telecommunications, transportation, industrial, and healthcare sectors. She is highly regarded as a motivator, executor and leader. In August 2013, Carla Harris was appointed by President Barack Obama to chair the National Women’s Business Council. Read More >

Named as one of the Top 40 Female Speakers in the World in 2020, Carla engages audiences around the world with her popular “Carla’s Pearls” where she shares with both leaders and emerging leaders how to maximize their career success across all industries using the “hard earned and hard learned” lessons that she acquired during her Wall Street Career. Her most recent book, Lead To Win, shares her pearls of Intentional Leadership to help professionals become powerful, impactful, influential leaders into today’s challenging professional context.

Carla has been 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”, and to Essence Magazine’s list of “The 50 Women Who are Shaping the World”, Ebony’s list of the Power 100 and many more. She has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Forbes, Fast Money, Barrons and many other publications.

In her other life, Carla is a singer who has sold out concerts at Carnegie Hall and the Apollo Theatre, and released 4 Gospel CDs: “O This is Christmas” (2021) “Unceasing Praise” (2011), “Joy Is Waiting” (2005), and her first CD entitled, “Carla’s First Christmas” (2000), was a bestseller on Amazon.com in New York and was featured on the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather in his “American Dream” segment. Read Less ^

Speaker Videos

TEDWomen: How to find the person who can help you get ahead at work

Own Your Power

Rising Through The Ranks

Power of Authenticity

A Letter To Myself

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Speech Topics

Carla's Pearls: Tools For Maximizing Your Success

Carla Harris speaks powerfully about the proven strategies that have helped her get ahead on Wall Street. With this presentation, she shares her hard-won "Pearls" to help audiences maximize their chance for success in the seat they are sitting in as well as their odds of reaching the seat they aspire to sit in. She discusses the importance and the power of perceptions in the workplace, the key relationships that you must have in order to ensure your success, and the power of authenticity and its place as a part of powerful leadership.

Leadership: Currency, Change, & Creating A Powerful Presence

Carla Harris, author of the book, Expect To Win and Strategize To Win, talks with audiences about the components of positioning yourself to maximize your success as a leader in your current career environment or the environment that you want. She explores the concepts of performance currency vs. relationship currency, managing through and creating change, and how to be an impactful and influential leader.