Women Driving Change in STEM was originally published on DiversityComm.
Pictured left Carla Harris/ MARLA AUFMUTH/GETTY IMAGES and Thasunda Brown Duckett/PARAS GRIFFIN/GETTY IMAGES
In boardrooms and business units across finance and STEM, a distinct leadership style is rising—one marked by empathy, innovation and built-in mentorship, especially toward underrepresented groups. Two standout executives—Carla Harris of finance and Thasunda Brown Duckett in investment services—exemplify how leaders can lift others while steering major organizations.
Carla Harris
Carla Harris has spent more than three decades at Morgan Stanley, including roles as Vice Chairman and Senior Client Advisor. She describes her leadership philosophy as rooted in mentoring and sponsoring talent—not just offering career advice but investing time and capital behind high-potential individuals. On her firm’s website, she defines a mentor as someone chosen and trusted, and a sponsor as someone “who carries your name behind closed doors and argues passionately on your behalf.”
In addition to her high-stakes work in capital markets, Harris founded Morgan Stanley’s Multicultural Innovation Lab and hosts the podcast Access & Opportunity, platforms through which she explicitly surfaces underrepresented talent and connects them to opportunity. Her approach demonstrates how empathy and innovation intertwine: she uses her influence to open doors while actively coaching others to step into them. As she puts it: “We are blessed so that we can be a blessing to someone else.”
Thasunda Brown Duckett
At TIAA, where she has served as President & CEO since 2021, Thasunda Brown Duckett leads a mission‐driven finance company and embeds inclusive practices into the organization’s culture and outreach. Before TIAA, she held senior roles at JPMorgan Chase’s consumer bank and auto-finance businesses, and as Director of Emerging Markets at Fannie Mae, where she advanced home-ownership strategy for Black and Hispanic Americans.
Duckett’s leadership style places community and equity of opportunity at its core: she founded the Otis & Rosie Brown Foundation in honor of her parents to empower community leaders and advance wealth-creation among underrepresented groups. At TIAA, she has highlighted the importance of workplace culture where “everyone feels valued and respected—where our associates feel comfortable coming to work as their best selves.”
What their leadership reveals
- Mentorship + sponsorship = upward momentum. Both Harris and Duckett emphasize mentoring—but go further by creating structures that sponsor, develop and elevate diverse talent. Harris’ model explicitly frames sponsorship as behind-the-scenes advocacy; Duckett’s foundation and board roles signal tangible pathways.
- Embedding opportunity in business outcomes. Harris translates her leadership into structural innovation: the Multicultural Innovation Lab is a mechanism, not just a program. Duckett aligns her executive role with a broader mission of financial inclusion—illustrating that inclusive leadership can be scaled.
- Empathy as a business advantage. Their leadership is grounded in authentic empathy—recognizing the systemic barriers faced by underrepresented groups and actively addressing them. This mindset doesn’t detract from profitability or growth; instead, it enhances organizational resilience and inventiveness.
- Bridging STEM/Finance with underrepresented talent. While their industries differ, both work at high levels in fields where women and minorities are underrepresented. Their mentorship and outreach emphasize that leadership is not just who you are but whom you lift.
As companies seek leadership models that go beyond the transactional, the examples set by Harris and Duckett offer a blueprint: one in which empathy and innovation combine, mentoring is institutionalized and lifting others is embedded in the role of leadership. For emerging leaders—particularly women in STEM and finance—these executives demonstrate that career success and community success need not be separate, but can rise in tandem.
