This year’s Leadership Week started strong Friday, February 20 with a “Leadership Appetizer” featuring Carla Harris, vice chairman of Global Wealth Management, managing director and senior client advisor at Morgan Stanley.
Harris visited UCF to share a message with students about leadership and enhancing your career from her new book “Strategize to Win: The New Way to Start Out, Step Up, or Start Over in Your Career.”
Nearly 50 students gathered in the Teaching Academy to hear Harris speak and copies of her books were distributed to the first 20 students in attendance.
One student at the event, sophomore psychology major Maya Rose, said she learned never to limit herself. “Have big dreams and reach as far as you can,” she said, and “form important relationships that can help you grow as a person and help further you in your organization.”
For Dwight Montgomery, a sophomore marketing major, the speech was particularly personal, as Harris is his cousin. He said she had plans to visit UCF and he had to get her to speak for Leadership Week, a few days in advance.
Of her presentation, he said, “If you have trouble knowing what you want to do in life in the guidance and making that decision, or would like to know interview strategies from a Wall Street veteran that has interview thousands of candidates, this book [Harris’ book Expect to Win[ is definitely the right choice.”
Germayne Graham, associate director of the LEAD Scholars Academy that hosts Leadership Week, said Harris was a great speaker to bring in for the students because she “had a powerful message for faculty, staff and students about strategizing to win.” Graham added, “Her pearls of wisdom were practical, witty and impactful. Everyone walked away with inspiration and new knowledge about their own leadership abilities.”