In 2003 she became the director of the Equity Private Placement Group at Morgan Stanley. Harris's job involved raising money for initial public offerings (IPOs), and she was involved in several high-profile IPOs in the late 1990s, including Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and United Parcel Service. It was tough coming to understand what that means and then what you must do about it." Now, mold me.’ I never realized that I would run into someone who might not have the capacity to do that, or who was too insecure to do it. I walked in here thinking, ‘Hey, I'm bringing the hard work, the raw intellect to the table. Her first years were tough, she told Clarke, because investment banking is a demanding and notoriously competitive field, and she was surprised to learn that "there is also some expectation that you will teach yourself. I have good people skills and analytical skills, and this investment banking thing fits all of that.’"Īfter earning her MBA, Harris was hired at Morgan Stanley, and over the next few years she rose through the organization's ranks to become managing director for global capital markets in 1999. "I wanted to be the one that called the shots. "I thought lawyers put the deals together, but that summer I realized that it was really the bankers," she recalled in the interview with Clarke for Black Enterprise. Harris was so intrigued by the world of investment banking, where high-finance corporate deals are structured, that she abandoned her plans for law school and applied to Harvard Business School. "They want to see if somebody is self-motivated enough." "The interviewer could see my enthusiasm, that I could follow the instructions well and take that above and beyond expectations," she told Wells in the Florida Times-Union interview. Her sole work experience was behind the counter of a McDonald's fast-food restaurant when she was in high school, but in the internship interview she discussed the challenges the job presented and what she learned from it. A minority-student mentoring program called Sponsors for Educational Opportunity provided some crucial direction for her when it arranged a summer internship with an investment bank on Wall Street. She was interested in finance as a career, but thought she would probably go to law school first. Harris brought that spirit with her to Harvard University, where one of her professors told her that she had no aptitude for math-at that, she decided to major in economics, a math-heavy program. "You can't tell me I can't do something." "I've always been negatively motivated," she joked to Judy Wells in the Florida Times-Union. When it came time to fill out college applications, her guidance counselor tried to deter her from applying to Ivy League schools, but she did so anyway and was accepted at three of them. She attended Roman Catholic parochial schools, graduating from Bishop Kenny High School in 1980. Your ability to do that depends on where your head is."īorn October 28, 1962, in Port Arthur, Texas, Harris grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, where her mother was a middle-school teacher and her father served as a captain for commercial fishing boats before taking over his family's retail business. "Yes, there can be someone that will stand in your way or try to make you feel uncomfortable, but you have the power to be unaffected by it. "The older I become, the more I realize that it really is that simple, and so much of it is in your head and in your perceptions," she told Black Enterprise writer Caroline V. Part of the first generation of black professionals to attain parity in the ranks of corporate America, Harris contended that bias is, in the end, irrelevant. Harris joined the company after earning her MBA from the Harvard Business School, and was only the second African-American woman to become a managing director at the firm. Harris was named a managing director for global capital markets with Morgan Stanley, one of the world's largest investment banks and financial-services firms.
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