SH Diversity Talks Presents: Diversity & Leadership with Carla Harris

Date: Monday 29th March
Time: 13.00 (EST) | 18.00 (GMT)

Join Rhona Gibson as she talks to the inspirational Carla Harris.

Carla Harris is Vice Chairman of Wealth Management and Senior Client Advisor at Morgan Stanley as well as an independent director on the board of Walmart since 2017. She was Chair of the Morgan Stanley Foundation from 2005 to 2014, and sits on the boards of several community organizations. In August 2013, Carla was appointed by President Barack Obama to chair the National Women’s Business Council. She is a gospel recording artist and a popular public speaker who gives impactful career guidance to corporate audiences based on her book, “Expect to Win.” Carla joined Morgan Stanley in 1987 after completing an AB in economics from Harvard University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

In this 45 minute talk, Carla will be giving her advice and guidance to organizations who want to diversify their leadership teams to become more diverse and inclusive. The key themes will include:

Assessing your diversity strategy and how to improve it
How to become a more inclusive organization
Working with your leadership team on becoming a more diverse and inclusive organization
How to diversify your leadership team
How to set and achieve your DEI objectives

We hope you will be able to join us for this in-depth discussion.

Register here or by clicking the button below.

About Carla Harris

Carla is a Vice Chairman, Managing Director and Senior Client Advisor at Morgan Stanley and is 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, Ms. Harris has had extensive industry experience in the technology, media, retail, telecommunications, transportation, industrial, and healthcare sectors. In August 2013, Carla Harris was appointed by President Barack Obama to chair the National Women’s Business Council.

For more than a decade, Ms. Harris was a senior member of the equity syndicate desk and executed the $3.2 Billion common stock transaction for Immunex Corporation, one of the largest biotechnology common stock transactions in U.S. history. During her career, Ms Harris has been recognised and named on numerous industry lists, including Fortune Magazine’s “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” to name a few.

Prior to joining Morgan Stanley, Carla 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 numerous Honorary Doctorates.

She is the past Chair of the Board of the Morgan Stanley Foundation and of The Executive Leadership Council, and sits on the boards of Sponsors for Educational Opportunity (SEO), A Better Chance, Inc and St. Vincent’s Hospitals.

Carla is an accomplished singer, having recorded three studio gospel albums and performed sell-out concerts at the Apollo Theatre and Carnegie Hall. She is also the author of ‘Strategize to Win’ and ‘Expect to Win’.

About Rhona Gibson

Rhona Gibson is a Director in the Global Banking and Private Equity search practice at Sheffield Haworth and focuses on senior roles in Corporate & Investment Banking, M&A, Equity and Debt Capital Markets and Leveraged & Structured Finance. She is also the US Lead for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for the firm.

Prior to joining Sheffield Haworth in 2018, Rhona worked in-house at JP Morgan with responsibility for diversity recruiting in Corporate & Investment Banking, Commercial Banking, Asset & Wealth Management and Consumer & Community Banking as part of the Advancing Black Leaders recruitment efforts.

She previously held key talent and staffing roles at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and New York Life, was a Director/Senior Consultant and Head of US Research and Execution at the Whitney Group, and was a Partner at a women-owned search firm focused on banking, ECM and GCM.

Rhona started her career as an Analyst at Goldman Sachs in Mortgage Finance, Sales & Trading; worked as an Associate at Morgan Stanley in Private Wealth Management; and as a Vice President at Utendahl Capital in Convertible Sales & Research. She also was the Director of New Business Development at the Upper Manhattan Empowerment Zone, a state and local initiative to revitalize Harlem, Washington Heights and the Bronx.

Rhona graduated magna cum laude from Brown University with a Bachelor of Arts in Applied Math & Economics and holds an MBA from Stanford University.

She has an Advisory role with Higher Heights for America, a political action committee and leadership research team focused on promoting black women in public office at the local, state and federal levels. She is active on other boards related to female and minority owned start-ups in education and technology. Rhona is a member of Chief, the private women’s club, founded to drive women forward into positions of power – and keep them there. Finally, she volunteers for Stanford Women on Boards Nominating Services Committee where she actively places women from Stanford into board seats.